|l DBR/ OFCOj^GRESS. 



lielf .,i 



CNIXEl) STATES OF AMERICA. 



b 



rnt 




'mmfmmm 



— BY- 



soLOJsr (DoaaETT. 









OFWASVA\V*^J 









1. By The Outer Gate. 

2. The Ballad of The Bells. 

3. Violets and Dreams. 

4. Golden Hours. 

5. The Old South Shork. 
G. Immortalis. 

7. Tanganika. 

8. Ocean Voices. 
0. Fireside Idyls. 



Copyrighted 1881. 

S. DOGGETT. 




^J 



--^PEEPiE^CEl 



'IH E R E is a story told of an old bard 
who wrote thousands of verses, but 
finding no one would read them, dis- 
couraged, hung them in a tree and 
went away ; but the Wind passing one 
day became enamored of only one verse, 
which he bore to the four-quarters of 
the earth. If in this book of mine one 
single verse finds its way into my read- 
er's heart, I shall feel fully rewarded. 
-^-^ The winds and the critics mean the 
same thing — everything must waste 
before them. 
The poems were written through past 
years, and are the history of my own 
heart, as I dwelt in the forest, by the 
sea, with friends, or alone with night 
and my conscience. 
In these times, when there is so much 
published, while it is most difficult to 
produce anything original, I know that 
I have only conversed with nature, 
writing down fearlessly what she has 
revealed to me ; and though I see the 
vistas before us, and feel I may have 
no great reward, still I shall write true 
to my dream. 

The Author. 
Quincy, Mass.^ 1881, 



To BenjcLTTLtrh C. CTxcvnxjpixey . 

iS'TO liim, who has communed with 
Nature in her tenderest beauty ; whose 
every picture unique, is a poem in it- 
self, and in whose studio, I first caught 
ghmpses of the glory of the heart and 
hills — I write, I dedicate, these Idyls. 

With the affectionate regards of 

The Author. 



TO MY fi^lEl^fiS. 



0', MY Friend ! where'er I find thee, 
Look with me into the heart ! 
Howe'er that days rebellious vex thee, 
We know each other — Ah, to part ! 



And though my name may be forgotten, 

I shall find thee once again : 
Take my lay, with love unbroken, 

Though dying suns may wane ! 

And when we dream, and speak not, 
But touch upon the golden strand, 

These little words shall waste not, 
Dearest, when I clasp thy hand. 

Here no more — then forever, 
Sweet landscapes, love, shall bloom ! 

Elysian's valley lights shall waver, 
Across these nights of gloom. 

O smile ! while our suns are shining ; 

Be calm, and patient till we go ! 
When in the happy home long dreaming. 

Together, we shall look below. 




j^^nowtwfi^n. 



i-^h 



fOVING Toward the swift ap- 
proaching dawn, 
And to the silent golden fields of Thought, 
Amid the worry of the weary millions 
Each clothed in his own mysterious robe. 
Tranquil will I wander on the dear old 

path, 
Across the lonely bars, and o'er the stile ; 
To what deep, ambrosial wood lands. 



Flowing with the sound of everlasting 
song, 

And the rest, of dreamy pleasant waters ! 

To sweet beds of happy flowers enchanted, 

And the smile of most immortal friend- 
ship ; 

Through what life's palpitations — in- 
decisions, 

The flickering of what lights, and golden 
visions of the heart. 




atE^Ms, 



nrSHERE Is a City of Song and Love, 
^ In my Poet Home of dream, 
Wherein the marvellous shadows move, 
And bright the paths between. 

Minaret and high and endless dome, 
That twinkle to the subtle height, 

Rise silent from our sands of gloom, 
To fields of rapture, and delight. 

Those gilded turrets touch the air. 
Unblemished morn and eve ; 

Lift up their domes through night and 
care. 
And by their glow my songs I weave. 

O look you to the sweet cloud land. 
To the home of Joy and Love ! — 

A semblance of the truth, and bland 
Float down these visions from above. 

There is a heart of tears and woe, 
That throbs, the rapture to foretell ! 

Those turrets guide where'er I go. 
And long their glories teach me well. 



All have their Golden Cities fair ; 

Ah ! scarcely pause to dream of them ! 
Forget in pride, and wealth, and tliere 

They quench the light that might have 
been. 
Ten thousand valley mists arise. 

Hide not yet, the golden streets. 
Though tears may wet these weary eyes, 

Still the happy music beats. 
Whoe'er shall hear, or read these lays of 
mine, 

The memories of my dream, 
Remember,they are but the wisps of time. 

That from the Gold^ Cities gleani. 

OFTEN, often to those Cities, 

In the silence of the night, 
I take a long and weary journey. 

Across the lakes of light. 
And then such throbs of music, 

Swell to some distant orb ! 
I catch them in my slumber. 

My heart, beats to record ; 



Sweet dreams, all lost at dawning, 

Golden Cities, misty seen, 
Heart throbbings, and day's harp strings 

Half eluding what hath been. 



THE POET. 

'ER The beautiful heights, in the 

tropical lights, 
With splendid lyres tuned, 
The Poet mounts, to the sylvan founts. 
Mid showers of gorgeous bloom. 

He speaks to the mountain's gloom, the 
clouds of noon. 
And they answer him. 
In Life's torrent deep, when the nations 
sleep. 
He dips his wondrous wing. 

He sits and waits, by the glassy lakes, 
Where few can understand 

The voices he hears, mid the seas of tears 
That roll to the golden sand. 

And from our tears, and radiant years, 
He hears a holy music sound ; 

With pinions high, and faithful eye. 
Finds, God's footsteps on the ground. 

O'er the numbers he moves, through the 
song he loves, 

A lily white hand ; 
And touches the heart, and beautiful art, 

With a magical wand. 



If the Poet finds here, 
the tear, 
Why complain ever more ! 



smile through 



The Poet is the light, that shone in the 
night. 
On this primeval shore. 



WHY happy should I, so sit and die. 

Over a warbled song ? 
All Poets have looked, in a little book. 

Are pricked by a prickly thorn. 

The book is the heart, that never can 
hark, 

Hearing what others may say. 
What a pity it is, whoever he is. 

He opened the book to day ! 

But the little heart stood, in the humble 
wood, 
Looked at the fair deep blue, 
And mused to itself, how vast is the 
wealth 
Of the diamond dew. 

But the smaller fly, with his still blue eye, 

Saw birds of paradise pass 
With their royal die, said why not I 

Just as finely cast 1 

But they flew away, and up through the 
day. 
Across the rivers of light, 
With their bugles of silver, through sun- 
niest weather, 
Scarcely deigning to light. 

With dioptrical motion, in a life of emo- 
tion, 
The Poet flies and moves on ; 
Yet the humble one sits, where the Glory 
flits. 
Never reaching her song. 



4=^..ttt£'<^^-!- 



^ 





O.NCI'], tlioV fntlk'd nic wlion a hay t 
Those blest, and dear old Bell.^ 
And Her, who was so sweet, and coy 
At SH'h<x>l, whose dust is m the dells. 




ir*r I go by the sedg}^ river, 
•W I find one thing that cheers. 
I hear low chimings sweet forever, 
Up and down the meres. 

They tire me not, they tire me never ; 

They soothe as Love's most tender 
tears ; 
About the bonny banks tliey waver 

To murmur in my ears. 

These Lays, come like sweet bells of 
evening. 

Across my thoughtful years; 
They ring to me in happy dreaming, 

Their smiles, their hopes, and fears. 



EVE. 

[\ CROSS the golden \vin(lo\\> of tlie 
west, 

Like a dagger fire tipt, strange, 
The dear old steeple shoots above the 
waste, 
Where mists at midnight range. 

The farmer homeward paces calm, and 

now, 

Falls down the curtains of the night ; 

Repose is where our winding rivers flow. 

And Day has ceased her wearied 

flight. 

The tired sheep, come down from off the 
windy hill. 

About the neck the tinkling orb. 
That wakes, and dingles to the dell. 

So sweet to every shepherd's call. 

The air is full of chiming, and of love. 

The blue-eyed maidens at the wells, 
Stand charmed, and let the pitcher 

' overflow, 
To hear the Twilight Bells. 



I hear in foreign lands, wild voices knell, 

The ancient iron tongue : 
I hear upon the alarm-ed citadel. 

The cry of bells at morn. 

I hear across the Alps' cold icy horns, 

Sigh anguish o'er the fells 
About the whitened waste, the mystic 

calls. 
Saint Bernard's beating Bells. 



hear the tramp of million weary feet ! 

Where bursts the shot and shell, 
Or,when Napoleon heard in rattling street 

Old Belgium's w^arning Bells. 

'Tis only where loud carnivals afar 

Sweep under arches high, 
You hear the bells below the morning star. 

Tlieir wildest voices sigh. 

^Tis here around my native happy shores. 
They tell their sweetest chime. 

And ring their songs about the country 
doors, 
Those Darling bells of mine. 

And when I die, what other tones shall 
sound. 
Across the sweet elysian dells — 
they shall chant like chimes from holy 
ground, 
A Ballad of the Bells. 

My friend! and dearest, wheresoe'er thou 
art, 

Learn all affection tells ! 
O gather round! ere cruel time shall part 

And hear the Ballad of the Bells. 



HOME BELLS. 

'OMES there are, and homes forever. 
Homes upon the sea. 
Homes nestled by the silver flowing river. 
In green woods dear to me. 

But dearest, all the bells that numbered 
The season's rise and fall. 



Where first I woke a boy, and Avondered 

At our old belfry's call. 
Sweet valley bells ! I hear them ringing! 

Low o'er my native dells ; 
All my days, the smiles, and tears soft 
telling — 

My hamlet's Darling bells. 

The sailor on the raving ocean, 
Loves his dear eight bells — 

Loud his heart beats with emotion, 
While thinking of watch bells. 

All hearts, who roam on Life's Atlantic, 
Look backward o'er sweet dells. 

And hear the old home belfry music 
Changed now to Golden Bells. 



CHIMES FROM THE HEART. 

^iT' LEAR evening chimes ! I hear their 
^1 sound ! 

They sing for me at fall of da}^ ; 
They chant above the misty ground. 

Where golden shadows play ; 

And whispering to the purple hill, 
They lull the woods in sleep ; 

They chime with every running rill, 
And murmur to the deep. 

I stand, near by the dear old stile, 
And linger lonely by the bars ; 

And looking toward Rest's happy isle, 
Dead Days, flash sweet to all the stars. 

O hear those darling, darling, bells ! 
They wake me night, and morn ; 



I hear them toll their evening knells, 
And laugh when Day is born. 

I hear their dreamy voices o'er, and oV 
Around the dusky twilight play, 

And echo soft, from shore to shore. 
That skirts the blue of Boston bay. 

Those happy bells ! Ah hear again, 
Before all care shall bear thee down! 

They dance upon old Braintree's plain 
And smile to all the steepled town. 

Beat, beat! — O sing, or wail ! 

Beat out the silent morning hour, 
Till my full heart within me fail 

To beat within its silent tower; 

range the bay, and bowery lawn, 
Sing to the silver sun all day, 

O laugh with me in dark, or dawn. 
About the beating billows play. 



To night, through mists, I hear the bells. 

To night I gaze across the sea ; 
They echo o'er the ocean wells. 

In sweetest music unto me. 

The seasons wane, by sounding shores, 
'Tis winter in the dappled dells ; 

But they still ring the passing hours. 
The low sweet chimes, O darling bells ! 

And now I tramp the crystal snow, 
At day break, on the white, cold hill ; 

Their distant voices come and go. 
And call across the fallow fell. 

With ice clad beard, Avhere drops the cone, 
Far in the wood I breathless list. 



() 



Amid the breaks of cedars lone, 
To hear them answer in the mist. 

() once, they called me when a boy ! 

Those blest, and dear old bells, 
And her, who was so sweet, and coy 

At school, whose dust is in the dells. 

The smoke curls up, and all the same. 
As in those dear, bright days of yore ; 

The school-house stands ; I sigh her name. 
Who hears those bells with me no more. 

Ring on old bells — O soft ring on ! 

Again the girls with golden hair. 
You call to school this winter morn. 

Who laugh and glow in morning air. 

Life is forever o'er and o'er. 

The same long vale, of care, and love ! 
Low beats the bells wild evermore. 

Each stroke brings tears for friends 
above. 

Ring on clear bells! in frosty morn, 
The youth, the smiles, the joys, the 
woe; 

In me, a higher youth is born 
From sounds ascending from below. 



The old vane turns upon the tower. 
And shakes to all the wailing blast. 

I find this morn a golden hour. 
To those who far beneath it pass. 

1 listen long, and patient wait ; 

The iron tongues beat out their knells ; 
But darling girls are at the gate. 

And laugh, while ring those dear old 
bells. 



And now the flowers are on the brow. — 
The marriage morn ! the kiss, and now 

'Mid music loud, they enter through 
That gate — hearts one, where once 
were two. 

They pass — and down our frosty vale. 
The bridegroom, and the happy bride. 

Soon sounds Life's clank of iron mail — 
O where the rapture of youth's tide ? 

Yet peals from out the belfry old, 
The glory of their morning dells. 

The love that iron tongues have told. 
The songs of happy marriage bells. 



Ten 3^ears — and what ? — and w^here 
The silken wedding dress she wore 'f 

O where those bells upon the air, 
That rang so sweet in days of yore / 

And what the song, and where the smiles ? 

What little daughters gather roimd, 
What partings in the lonely aisles, 

What tears that drench the snowy 
ground ! 

What silence at the table there ! 

What lonely chair upon the hearth ! 
What crape about the golden hair ! 

What bells, cry loud the death, and 
dearth. 

What shadows by the window sill. 

What father mourns by iron gates. 
What room, is cold and still 1 

What tearful mother sits, and waits. 

waste not here, thy humble life ! 
So live, to meet them on that shore, 



Where no dark shadow rests, nor strife, 
But marriage bells, ring sweet once 
more. 



'Twas once ! Ah then I was a boy ! 

The road was crisp in winter snow, 
When laughter rang with joy — 

O'er that fair land in dreams I go. 

Again in love-sweet evening air. 
We glide on gleaming icy fells. 

I hear the laugh of maidens there. 
The jingle, jingle of the bells. 

The white steeds wildly prance, 
Across the windy, forest dells ; 

The moon beams shine and dance. 
To this sweet jingle of the bells. 

llie fox peeped outward to the moon, 
We heard the wild dogs distant bay. 

We heard the whistle of the loon ; 
We rode like sun-beams o'er the day, 

Like spring-time's freshened buds our 
hearts — 

Ivosy blazed the planet Mars, 
But rosier burned the maiden's cheek. 

That glowed to all the golden stars ; 

And tresses darkled to the winds, 
Till o'er the brow, and smiling eye. 

The snow beat quick its whitened wings. 
As when the blinding snow-flakes fly. 

days ! Sweet days of long ago ! 
Wild whirls my wasting dream that 
tells, 
How dear their joy, now touched with 
woe, 
How sweet the jingle of those bells ! 



There is a dark and dreaded ledge, 
Where wails the northern winds all 
night, 

Where billows drive their ruthless wedge, 
Across the waste to Boston light. 

List thou, at the loud trembling shock. — 
'Tis when the surges rise and fall, 

And lash in crowds, that cruel rock, 
You hear one lone bell wildly call. 

The sailor hears, through dusk and gloom. 

Ah me! I miss youth's bells until I die; 
Their sounds o'er deeper billows roam. 

And breathe a long and sleepless sigh. 

No difference wheresoe'er I go. 
Below the belts of blasted wood, 

Or to that river's fabled flow, 
In Europe, o'er the stormy flood; 

Or hear far bells loud undertone, 
Li famed cathedrals vast and high. 

Where wondrous chimes are rock en- 
throned — 
My native bells, make moist mine eye. 

evening chimes ! Ah home like sound ! 
Hide in my bosom's secret wells — 

1 cannot break this happy bond — 

The glory of my Darling Bells. 



But in the spring, when all the flowers 
came. 
Our dearest, turning up tliose earnest 
eyes. 
Speaking to her sister once again, 

Told of sweeter Bells, beyond the hap- 
py isles. 



DEAR SISTER'S GOOD BY 



f 



HEY sa^-^ that I am dying sister! Is 
this, can this, be so ? 
I thought that I might stay with thee, long 
years before I go ! 

come with me, sweet sister! the night 

seems nearer now. 

1 hear the chimes so far, yet near ; the 

night-winds softer bloAv. 

Hark — I hear sweet angel voices ! they 

gently speak with me. — 
When dawning streaks the meadow, I'll 

be no more with thee. 



Did mother speak, dear sister 1 I thought 

I heard her now. 
O ! it was the same, same, Avhisper she 

breathed to me below. 

And father — he has gone away ; but I 
see his spirit hand ! — 

It looms through mists of golden day, be- 
fore yon angel band. 

This rose seems lovely sweet, my sister, 
O lay thy head near mine ! 

Tliere's here a balm more fragrant, than 
this ^weet flower of thine. 



All ! my eyes are closing, closing, sister; 

pull back the curtains now. 
1 love to feel the breezes moving, before 

I fade and go. 

Don't wake up little Mary, she'll weep so 
much for me : 



She hears not yet, Death's bugles blow- 
ing ; they call not yet for thee. 

Death's angel quick is calling, it is not 

hai'sh — but sweet. 
I hear the low responses falling : " we 

soon, we soon, will meet." 

O look 'lis twilight now, sweet sister, the 
waxen lilies close. 

hear the thrush's last farewell, where 

yonder brooklet flows. 

1 shall wander there no more, my darling, 

where we so often pass — 
The daisy 'ill bloom down there forever, 
amid the tall, fresh grass- 

We '11 walk no more at pleasant evening ; 

my hand, you will not hold ; 
And soft will come the spring time, across 

the wild, cold, world. 

At night, you '11 look up through the dark- 
ness, and Avatch the cold, still, stars, 

And see the northern meteors brighten, 
wide sweep their fiery cars. 

And when the snows, lay so cold and 
dreary, o'er all the frosty hill, 

You'll think of me, sweet sister, in my 
cold grave so still. 

And the snows will ever deepen o'er my 

low, lone grave, 
When the north winds loudly will bt' 

sweeping, o'er wild Atlantic's wave. 

Good by — I scarce can say good by i 
wipe now thy drenching tears. 



r do not feel afraid to die, but weep for 
thy sad years. 

I hoped that we should say farewell, in 

a colder time than this, 
I rather die ^mid winter's icy shades, — I 

cherished long this wish. 

Now — it is hard, sweet sister, to pass in 

summer time. 
When the lilies bloom along the river, 

amid the long, sweet thyme. 

You'll visit me — my sister; and touch 

my white head stone. 
Vou'll . come in pleasant Sabbath days, 

when I am all alone. 

I'he blue bird in the windy tree, when 

spring time comes again. 
Will lonely come, and call for me across 

the long, cold plain. 

The flower will lift its golden wand ; the 
yellow butter-cup will bloom. 

Deep in the wild marsh land, but I shall 
lie, down in the gloom. 

Last Christmas eve, the church bells rang 
the song my mother loved to hear: 

It hinted of a dearer life to me, than all 
this golden year. 

I found no hour so sweet as this, to take 

thy hand in trust, 
And have thee know, tliat we shall meet 

though I — return to dust. 

For thou art — so near to me, my sister ! 

and when you move about my grave 
You '11 know, that I have gone to rest, all 

safe, when Sin shall rave. 



When mother died — she took my hand, 
and gently whispered warm : 

"I die in hope to night, my child, but 
thou wilt come at morn. „ 

I am going now ! sweet sister, take 

my useless hand ! 
To night I fall asleep below, but wake in 
morning land. 

1 see the breaking. Heavenly light, be- 

yond these curtains pour. 
Dear sister ! You 'il hear me say my last 
good night, and speak with me no 
more. 

take good care of little Mary, let her 

be sleeping now ! 

1 see the angels bending, sister, and kiss 

for me her brow. 

We shall all^ be angels there ! O hear 

them calling me away ! 
Ten thousand harps I hear — they take 

me at the fall of day. 

I put my arms about your neck. 'Tis 

hard to say good by ! 
But I shall meet you in the light, when 

by my grave you lie." 



Ring, ring — thou dear old Bell ! 

Sigh, sigh — thy chimes again ! 
Once more thy tongue must beat the knell 

And rend my heart with pain. 

Toll, toll — our dear one toll ! 

Once more we pass the church yard 
gate. 
Once more, the little pall unfold, 

deeply think, and wait. 



10 



Two years ago, that bell tolled wild, 

For the dearest of our home ; 
Again, God takes a darling child, 

'Mid raptures to his own. 
And now those bells, are sweeter still, 

They, for our sister tolled — 
More blest they are to this lone hill, 

Those Darling Bells of old. 

Some time — that iron tongue must beat, 
And echo to ray silent shore, 

When I am carried through the gate. 
And hear those bells no more. 

Darling Bells ! what are thy Lays ? 

They wake in me a constant love, 
Are benedictions to my days, 

Like whispers from above. 



OUR CONSOLAflON. 

H ! Love-wild eyes ! however beau- 
tiful and deep, 
Down beats the tearful tide ! 
There roams no heart, however long in 
night oppressed. 
But there, sweet hopes abide. 

There is no room, delightful, with its lit- 
tle band. 
But some dear one is there ; 
No Home, where dark Sorrow spreads 
her wasting hand, 
But sets one lonely chair. 

There is no place on earth, that bears 
the noblest fame, 
But there some grief abides ; 
No high, and worldly glory, sounding 



sweet in name, 
But there some phantom glides. 

O vacant chair ! O lonely hearth ! Love 
smiles no more 
Beside the long quenched fire ! 
There are no smiling faces at the olden 
door, 
No wedding feasts are there ! 

Let us hope, enduring ! in all these bit- 
ter griefs — 
Each lonely place so dear, 
Is but the silence, that ever sweetly 
sleeps, 
Ere Heaven's choirs we hear. 

In the hushed chamber, when no voice 
is heard, but sobs, 
The silver screws are turned — 
It is not the whole — the last farewell — 
when falls the sod. 
O'er beauty's empty urn. 

Death is only, a Swift departing Shade, 
that rests, 
O'er closed and weary eyes ! 
A sign from God, when grief disturbs 
no more the breast, 
Where Love will reign on high. 

In that sweet reunion, mid transcendent 
thought and light, 
There dwell our angel dead. 
Where they shall feel no more earth's 
temptations, cold, and blight, 
Have only gently fled. 

Life has deepened, made far sweeter 
while we live, 
By knowing them at rest ; 
From light in light, they look on us, when- 



11 



e er we grieve, 
With all their prayers that bless. 

We follow them each day, and wonder 
if they feel, 
In angel homes above — 
Love with them still, and wonder if we 
are indeed, 
Here, worthy of their love. 

Our friends are taken, showing ere our 
span is run. 
How changeful are our days — 
That we should orb about more radiant 
suns, 
The little while we stay. 

Will they remember us, what we do or 
say 1 
Each low, or high desire 1 
And thinking how their life moves in 
Celestial Day, 
Do they our souls inspire i 



No word from this cold earth, can all 
assuage our grief, 
Yet we must bear in peace ; 
Our weeping glorify, till death brings 
our own release, 
In light, we see their face. 

But we shall hear, o'er dawn's resplendent 
crimson bars, 
The sound across eternal dells, 
A full, deep music, trembling to the 
watching stars, 
Far Sweeter Darling Bells. 

'Tis here, and there, and there forever- 
more. 
Dies not Love, nor Hope fails. 
O rise! to those deep whispers, heard 
through golden doors. 
When Sorrow tolls the Bells. 



, ,^,_ 






J^"- • 



-^w^-^w 



^l^^l^ 



THE VIOLET. 



EAUTIFUL Violet ! smiling in still 

wood lands, 
Or near the solitary shores, 
Or where the babbling river rides o'er 
sands of silver. 
About the sunny moors : 

Thou sleepest, in thy sweet meadow deep- 
ened quiet, 
When weary hearts complain ! 
And weep alone, when o'er thy down is 
falling, 
The summer storms of rain. 

Blooming, by the constant murmuring 
waters. 
Thou art in glory born — 
Queen of the day ! the woodland's little 
daughters, 
That laugh in summer morn. 



The Zephyr moves — and stirs thy azuro 
mantles, 

And o'er thy silken blooms, 
Sleeps the gorgeous tinted fly unstartled. 

That ever round thee roams. 

The butter-fly of gold awaits thee in thy 
beauty. 
There sweeps his downy robes. 
And rocking thyself to rest by clear, still 
fountains. 
You sing but not in words. 

Thou lookest, in thy beautiful, blue, 
radiance, 
Across the midnight's deep ; 
And the golden sun, lingers in its rays 
resplendence, 
Charming thy lovely sleep, 



Tliou art from some mystic Queen a blest 
descendant ; 
So sweet — here might find abode 
One dear soul, that haunts us with divine 
remembrance, 
Unburdened from Life's load. 

Thou dreamest ever, in thy deep home 
ambrosial ; 
The river laughs by thee, 
Perennial is robed thy bloom in splendors 
royal ; 
The pine tops bow to thee. 

( ) sweet, pale, Violet ! may be thy life 
eternal ! 
Fair maiden of the pure. 
Smiling by silver rivers, in quiet homes 
supernal. 
To me forever more. 



THE PINE WOODS. 

^ERE are the grand old Pines ; from 

their drooping branches. 
Drops the fragrant balmy cone ; 
And through their heights, in dismal, con- 
stant marches. 
Loud the night winds, whirl and moan. 

AH through the month of cold, and wild 

November, 

Comes the starved crow from the hill. 

And flits like the phantom frost of 

bleak December, 

Through their branches high and still. 

Save, when from the distant roaring 
ocean, 



You hear the winter winds blow cold, 
And sweep the heavy pine tops, wild in 
deep commotion, 
And driving snows are on the wold. 



The winds moan — and shake their snowy 
mantles, 
DowuAvard to the frozen ground, 
And the clanging branches sigh, and 
weirdly rattle, 
Breathe a low and ceaseless sound. 

Afar through the dim, and drifted wood 
lands. 
They lift their desolated crowns. 
And in solemn troops, by the solitary sea 
shore, 
They march, with darkly shrouded 
forms. 

Like vast, and muffled, sad processions, 
Moving toward the open tomb. 

Like high and dark, mysterious shadows. 
Seem they to sigh in silent gloom. 

Far in the cold, clear, and voiceless 
moonlights, 

In lands of the icy North ; 
In the mist land of dreary Norway, 

They send their windy voices forth. 

As o'er a vast and slumbering city, 

Dark phantoms flit ere battle morns, 
They haunt the coast of sea, in shade and 
darkness. 
They spread on high their gloomy 
forms. 



'I'liev stand, as in the dark and weary 
bosom, 
The woes that blast imj)assioned hearts. 
As when our dead sorrows group in lone- 
ly shadows, 
About our Life's low lighted parks. 



AN IDYL OF LIFE« 
A DREAM. 

/Tl-' OLD-WINGED Morn, wafted from 
^^ that torrid Sun 
That burns eternal to these restless hours. 
Awakes me. Smiles are on her pallid face, 
Ivose lit, sweet, as wild ambrosial flowers. 

lieautif ul as a maiden's earliest blush 
Slie breathes with all the western winds, 
Fi-esh-beamed, elate from slumber deep 

with light, 
Wild in tremor *from boundless, sullen. 

Night. 

Dusk-born dreams rise from the heart, 

and there 
Flap their «pale wings to all the morning 

stars ; 
And as one just astir from weary dreams 

of air, 
Day shakes her tresses to the crimson 

bars. 

A voice came wafting, like a golden 
dream, 

And all awake I closed my lids at morn; 

Dim shapes quick floated down Life's sil- 
ver stream; 

And I dreampt of a thousand years of 
dawn. 



There rose two hearts; two gentle hearts 
That fluttered by me like the lamps of 

night : 
Then o'er yon sunny stream, like golden 

darts, 
They beckoned me, and floated up to 

light. 

My tongue was sealed. I breathed not. 
Then I struggled, and they said : " my 

lips moved 
As they in wildest dreaming, pale and lost 
In shadow land, despairing where they 

loved. " ' 

Then came shuddering, and 1 knew not 
In trembling light, the night from morn. 
There was no night nor day, but seas of 

thought 
Gold-lit, flickered glorious to the dawn. 

And there was Life, all strange within 

itself, 
Dim shadows flitting by wild seething 

streams, 
Sounds rising from the jingling bags of 

wealth. 
High castles built in most unquiet dreams; 

Dim woods, where ride in twilight dark. 
Woes, in their cold, uncounted, wasting 

forms ; 
Sweet smiles — lights gleaming on the 

park ; 
Dawns dashed with niiihtas soon as born. 



I had read the Poets; and L'rania's stars. 
I had traced the radiant streams of Love ; 
Thoughts that burned — pictures of wild 
wars — 



Jiiit books, like by-gone ghastly spectres 
moved. 

Deep corridors lead to dark abysses there, 
And dread kings with fiery crowns of 

death 
IJuilt up vast fires, that rose in lurid air, 
Consuming evermore, each hallowed leaf. 

Then, great hearts wept seas of wildest 
tears. 

And Poets gazed upon their ruined work. 

Whose blood ran cold to all the ruthless 
years, 

And nations wailed where they had hope- 
ful wrought. 

And Fate's blood-eyed vulture dipt his 

dark wings, 
Wild Demons sucking at the love-born 

heart, 
Forked the flames, as when the wild Sun 

flings 
His fires, and wafts his cinders vast and 

dark. 

Blasts of warlike bugles blown for torrid 

War, 
Whirled up the dim aisles, and wild, with 

all distress ; 
And waving plumes upon the alarmed 

air. 
Arose and fell, in seas of dark unrest. 

I heard the Deatli-sliod army's desolating | 

trami), 
Reverberate blood-tongued to gore-dript 

icy horn, 
Napoleon's cold heart dragged up the 

windy Alp, 



And guns upon the ramparts, wild at 
morn. 

Ere great thoughts arose one Chariot 

. rolled, 
Whose cloud like wheels did beat Time's 

golden sands, 
As when in winter's dusky dawn of cold, 
Fire-tipt clouds rake by the mountain 

lands. 
And such music pealed to the bright far 

deep, 
I quickly turned toward that unshadowed 

flight. 
As in a sudden start one wakes from 

sleep. 
When morning sounds reveille to the 

light. 
Dante's music sang to every dawn-touched 

star. 
And deep sweet light on golden bugles 

gleamed. 
More sweet than nation's glimmered scim- 
itar. 
And the air itself did rest, and fall in 

dream. 
Roimd he wrapt his floating cloud like 

robes, 
Still singing of Beatrice, still his dazzling 

Sun, 
Wasting to Earth's icy shadows, and its 

loads 
No more, forever loving what he sung; 

And there, gold charioted, like a king, 
Shakespeare still harped to all his starry 

shore. 
Making Melpomene a blushing Queen, 
And for Lenora, Tasso mourned no more. 



The bards Arcadia's deep sylvan woods, 
Moved like knights to tournaments, fresh 

woke, 
And Homer dreamed again of golden 

floods ; 
Milton sunnier grew, no more of Satan 

wrought. 
Then the gleaming chariot rolled away, 
And faded, and the throbs of music fled 
Wholly, as when far on the verge of day 
We bury one we loved, all night lain 

dead. 
And no lamentation rose throughout all 
That Heaven, while the great stars on- 
ward rolled ; 
No sound like earth's dire discontent, 
Woke from that fair chariot of gold. 

And I stretched tired hands ; implored, 
That I might constant follow, like a star. 
That Poet Chariot, where no storm roared, 
No wails of starving feelings wild at war. 

Ten thousand years of glimmering dawn, 
Burst from the pale, deep, infinite ; 
And rich voices woke in worlds of song, 
Floating evermore upward, light on light. 

Bright as the day, domed, central cities 

gleamed. 
Like Orion's eternal suns all night; 
And many people pale-browed seemed 
Pacing to and fro with all delight; 

And kings and queens were crowned; 

Loud clanking chains shook in damp dun- 
geons cold ; 

Chronicles of nations wailed from red 
ground ; 

Pale, strange, fingers touched golden 
harps of old. 



So whirled my dream to far infinitude. 
Lives! O wondrous Lives! what will 

they mean ? 
They burn themselves to dross in shortest 

years. 
Now sweet; now touched Avith Beauty's 

golden gleam. 



Then he who sang of sweet Evangeline, 
Met her in happy rest triumphant there. 
And saw in all the harvest fields of time . 
Sandalphon's pinions rising still in 
prayer. 

And those deep numbers flaunting 

through all Time, 
Of Britan's Laureate, awoke again gold- 
fire, 
Aromered from the darling lands divine, 
Burned to the hearts that could no more 

expire. 
And he, who for the slave's abrading 

chain 
Wept, and prayed for Freedom ever- 
more, 
Heard so oft below, carved out his name 
On Liberty's crown, on wild New Eng- 
land's shore. 
1 heard the tinkle of the bridle rein ; 
I heard the clank of golden armor fair : 
I saw the plumes of Lancelot again. 
And he who loved to sing of him wat^ 
there. 

And Elaine, whom, in the dusk of dawn. 
Was wafted on that sable, solemn stream. 
Awoke with that last letter in her hand, 
Where Love was never more a doleful 
dream. 



Then came wild Music o'er tlie azure 

deep, 
Far outward from that Poet Chariot, 
Rose o'er the golden orbs, tliat noiseless 

beat 
There spacious tracks more swift than 

thought. 

And all the azures blazed upon the tires, 
That whirled triumphant, quick with 

flight, 
Struck the wild flash of Celestial fires, 
While silver bugles glimmered to the 

night. 

I could not move. Like one in voiceless 

dream 
I turned : but the broad sun of early day 
Seemed dyed in blood ; and looked on 

me ; and gleamed ; 
And said: "Awake; the Morn ^' and 

rolled away. 



THE FLOWERS. 

f;ALE purple flowerets ! beaming by 
the sweet, still waters, 
In silent desert lands ; 
Elfins of the Sun; sweet dreams un- 
touched by night, 
Radiant with delight; 

Yet lingering sweetest by the humble cot- 
age door. 
You waste for darling eyes, 
And bend caressingh^ awaking or in 
sleep, 
To kiss the maiden's feet ; 

Flaunting, like dear spirits in deepest syl- 
van woods, 



The happy brides of day ; 
Dear sisters of the Angel's azure deej^- 
ened eyes, 
Where Beauty musing dies. 



All hearts must have their jewels : pearls 
set in gold ; 
So in her sunny crown, 
Old Nature wears the glory of the star- 
winged flowers, 
Gold eyes, in golden bowers ; 

Wild aster near to rock bound, boundlesfi 
waste, 
And lilies fast asleep ; 
Dear Rose-buds lost in tall grass, and 
bright Marigold 
In reed grass by the pool ; 

Sweet " Forget-me-not, " dreaming on the 
maiden's breast, 
For lovers far away ; 
Primrose, darling, dallying into darkest 
night, 
And wreaths of silver light ; 

Flowers, withering on dead and most hal- 
lowed stems. 
Once held by dear ones gone ; 
Pale glories twining round the wasting, 
broken heart, 
Sweet Flowers sealed up at dark. 

For the humble, and for the kings, they 
rest the same. 
Near to loved closing lids ; 
In this, the rich and poor shall mingle 
with the hours, 
Sleep with the golden flowers. 



Kadiant upon the freshened meadow 

lands, 
The coming of the golden-sandaled Morn ; 
I saw her dampened garments drip their 
showers 
Upon the pale wild flowers. 

Like diamonds glowing to the night, 
They laugh by sunny beaming streams. 
And bow their crowns to all the hours, 
The Love-sweet darling flowers. 

The maiden's dearest dream is love, 
But next the perfect gold-winged flowers ; 
What heart with heart can well embrace, 
Without their happy grace. 

Flowers are the meek, calm, smiles of 

God: 
They are the griefless things of earth. 
Our Hope, our Faith, we named a flower ; 
Dear brows their beauty wore. 

No one thing like the sweet pale face. 
Of my beloved when she sleeps. 
But the white lily down the stream, 
Forevermore in dream. 

Heaven wafts us smiles and light. 
All dreams tender touched with night. 
All these happier thoughts of ours. 
Beautiful as the flowers. 

And when I walk at even-tide, 
The mystic balms of night are theirs : 
The buds reope in silver showers. 
When dawn rewakes the flowers. 

Pure as the mountain air they glow, 
Uplifting deep and tender ieyes ; 
Emblems of long sweet rest are they. 
Expanding to the day. 



'Tis in the dear, deep, meadow lands. 
The disheartened seek their light ; 
They are the cheer of lonely hours, 
The golden happy flowers. 

There is no secret in the world so sweet, 
The little humble flower-bells keep : 
They whisper to us from their bowers, 
Dear peaceful, gentle flowers ! 



B 



ALONE 
WITH THE CONSCIENCE. 

Q;R.EAK darhng lights ! Break on the 
. ) deep ! 
Not on cold seas where billows roar, 
By Norway's desolated shore. 

Not on long famed sun beaten waste, 
That gold-winged Poesy slumbered o'er, 
Where glory glows in dreams no more ; 

But through sublime, eternal deeps ; 
That Conscience, weeping wild all night, 
Where breaketh evermore, God's Light. 



Let Raptures rise, and dance with Faith, 
While Heaven lights her holy lights, 
That throw their beams o'er tracks of 
night. 

Life is, and was, the hope of hopes ; 
God's ceaseless working, more than thine, 
On this dim wizard orb of time. 

Time holds a mass in golden halls, 
Where Prayer and Hope eternal staid. 
And holds its orgies to the dead. 

They fade, those dearest loves of ours', 



10 



So common as the leaves to die, 

When Time but breathes its lightest sigh. 

Time touches sweet the pale blue bell, 
Old Autumn sheds his golden light, 
Then fade our thoughts on wastes of 
night. 

Hope trembles wild with all distress, 
And long forgotten smiles are knells, 
That fade, like low tones of the bells. 

But shores are bright with beckoning 

hands, 
While Time with solemn footstep flaunts 
Wild on our very grave doth dance. 



O lonely Conscience ! Where shalt thou 

go? 
On what wide Time-orbed track to be ? 
What whispers to the soul in me ! 

Reason murmurs : " Wake, and beat new 

vales, 
Where trustful feet may not have been : 
Let Hope unfold her golden wing — 

Thoiigii mind burn down to embers cold ; 
Although in winging Thought's long 

flight, 
Its cerements lay as stark as night." 

The mind invents; Deep Feeling lights 

the torch. 
And all our midnight vision wakes, 
And guides, when weary beauty weeps" 

All night one wastes by bitter seas ; 
Light comes when holy Vision bids, 
Till nameless trouble raise her lids: 



Then day looks down on homes of care. 
Till voices warble from the stars. 
Across earth's golden window bars, 

Rise in the soul, and in the heart 
Run o'er, till crimson dusk of dawn 
With white seas breaking to the morn. 

What are our dreams ? but the wild day 
Whirls on with ruthless want and care. 
The golden visions waste in air, 

And weary hearts complain in woe — 
And the unending cry for gain, 
Of toilers on the torrid plain. 



What is the inner Soul we hide ? 
Thought's deep abyss, our silent land ! 
Where gleameth still God's guiding hand. 

Dead fingers touch the warm heart strings^ 
That throb to music all divine, 
Rang o'er the golden seas of Time. 

What is that inner darkness deep, 
That stalks about the dawn-arched soul, 
Doubt's spectres pale, and wild, and cold. 

Where is the inner baseness born, 
That roams these desolated moors. 
O'er Life's strange barren, boistrous 
shores. 

What is this inner selfishness. 
We nurture by the lurid fires. 
Wherein our vainest dream expires. 

Have we some secret darkest place. 
Far in the weary Conscience down, 
Some inward sin we dare not own ? 



11 



A spectre, when e'er in gloomy dusk, 
We draw the curtains to retire, 
Flaunting with rolling eyes of fire. 

Down baseness down ! all sorrow down ! 
These night-born vapors o'er our stars, 
Will scatter by the dawning bars. 

What is my Conscience 1 In dark night 1 
Day comes; sweet day; unfolded full ! 
(Jod's dawn rolls o'er the blessed Soul, 

About the woods, the dark trees spread 
Their limbs of fragrant nectared balm. 
By tracks of summer's golden calm. 

The great clouds roll in azure air 
Their chariots of mellow light, 
With holy, happy, clear delight. 

The daisy looks with tender eyes, 
No cloud upon the silver main, 
And darling Nature smiles again. 

But what to us the babbling brooks, 

Or all the season's fretted gold, 

If Doubt, and Death, dwell with the soul. 



Tliere is a loneliness within the heart. 
That smiles with songs the waters make. 
With slumberous sunbeams on the lake ; 

With silver clouds of summer dawn ; 
With all the floating shadows play, 
That laugh to all the lucid day ; 

With winds that murmur to our hills. 
Where blue seas lift their isles of light. 
And whisper sweetness to the night ; 

Or with the moon's most placid beam, 
When Evening softly dreams of Earth, 
Night's sweetest voices have their birth. 



There is a loneliness of soul, 

Like that one feels, when water drops. 

Fall one by one in caverned vaults. 

And echo to the shuddering thoughts, 
In vague dim vistas under ground, 
A coldest, ghastly dismal sound ; 

A silence, though seething streets are 

near, 
Though hast'ning hundreds come and go. 
With grating noises to and fro. 

Not in the crowd we find our cheer ! 
Most then, the Conscience feels alone, 
And sits in silence — in what gloom? 

Vast visions rise in lonely hours — 
O then we are, just what we are ! 
On Life's wild deep, one silent star. 

God stood alone in tracks of calm. 
Ere His wandering orbs were born ; 
Truth lives, and we must die alone. 



IN MEMORY OF 
E. W. W. 

'T^ KNEW him in his early youth, 
"^ A constant friend to me ; 
A foregleam of the deathless truth, 
The love-land sweet for me. 

My young, and dearest friend is gone. 

I loved the smile he wore. 
Those radiant graces upward flown, 

We do behold no more. 

No pallor o'er his youthful cheek, 
Did tell us of Death's hour ; 

He moved with us so joyous here, 
x\s spring about the flower. 



12 



So still, so quick, he passed away, 
As fading evening's bx-eath, 

More beautiful at closing day, 
No gloom to him in death. 

It was the windy autumn time, 

Amid the rustling leaves. 
We bore him from the mansion gate, 

While fell the hour of eve. 

The tall trees seemed to bend their limbs 
And weep above the path ; 

The dead flowers bend their little heads, 
Within the pleasant gi-ass. 

The presence of his genial thought, 

The kindness of his smile. 
Moved round us as the morning light, 

On some blest balmy isle. 

Firm words of courage, words of cheer, 

Did give to us more hope. 
That lightened many a burden here. 

And deeper longing woke. 

The kindness of his gentle look, 

Was ever by our side , , 
We dwelt upon his cheerful face, 

As o'er blest pages wide. 

And he ! with all this placid look ! 

With hands across his breast — 
We laid him near the quiet nook, 

In all his smiles, to rest. 

We miss him in our twilights drear ; 

And through the vacant door. 
When full our songs are ringing clear, 

His footstep comes no more. 

His song that woke the silent rooms, 

In joy about the lights. 
When gathered there, we shall not hear, 

Nor hear his kind " Good Nights," 



The glory of his life to us, 

Was like some lovely hymn, 

A constant whisper from above, 
A prayer the angels bring. 

There seems a gloom in summer time, 

If ere we speak of him ; 
A shade across the depth of night. 

When rose buds bloom again. 

The day light wanes, to saddened stars, 
That sweep the dismal deep ; 

The lone winds sigh, from world to world , 
All Nature even weeps. 

When cold the dreary week begins, 

We find him not, nor hear 
His wonted paces beating quick, 

While rolls the wasting tear. 

But though a darkened shadow falls, 
Between me and my friend, 

I feel his finer blessing now. 
Across my nights descend. 

THE NEW YEAR'S LITTLE 
DAUGHTER. 

ONE morning from my slumber 

woke ; 

I heard a tapping at my door. 
From the wild marsh land, the Giant came, 
I've heard him oft before. 

I oped the door, and found him there, 
White, bearded, tall and grim, 

The pale and tried, wild New Year; 
I did not dare to let him in. 

He said : " I have a little daughter here 
with me ; 
If thou wilt take good care of her, 



13 



With her bright eyes, blue as the sea, 
My friend, I'll give her unto thee. 

We liassed last year through windy 
March, 
And by the swiftly melting snows; 
We heard the wild wails through the 
larch. 
And saw the earliest bright rain-bows. 

We passed by fullest falls and streams, 
And heard the budding boskage 
ring : 

Left Summer sleeping still in dreams : — 
I call this little maiden. Spring. 

She is a sweet, and darling one, 

The first of all my daughters here; 

She singeth when the snow is gone, 
And never sheds like you, a tear. 

We passed the may-pole in the wood, 
And heard the merry cheer and shout: 

She was so sweet and bright of mood. 
Even the owl by day looked out. 

Her eye so bright, and cheek so red, 

Her reveille echoing to each nook, 
Her laughter wild from mead to mead, 

The wild deer paused his speed to 
look. 
Still in air the eagle stood. 

Her thought is more than lore of 
books ; 
She gazeth o'er the sunny rood ; 

She lingereth by the water brooks : 

And when she passes gently by, 

The flowers lift up their little heads, 

Uplift their deep and golden eyes : 

The blue bird from her soft palm 
feeds. 



you will find her kind to you, 

This little darling maid I love : 
She brings no storm, or frosty dew. 
But draws ambrosia from above. 

The clouds give her a sweet nick-name : 
She moves as finer feelings move 

About the heart's impassioned flame : 
Up there they name my sweet Spring 
Love. " 

1 heard the New Year tell his tale. 

I took in the little maid. 
And said : I '11 always love the dale 
And her — and little Spring time 
staid. 

OUR 
TRIUMPH OVER GRIEF. 



0i 



J\ LIVE within thy cocoon cell, 
^ Forever faithful till the last ! 
And be thou patient, laboring well, 
Enduring for the nobler task. 

Dead is the heart that never looks 
On high, beyond Life's smaller stars ! 
Nor ever reads from other books 
The glow that gilds these prison bars. 

Immortal minds who rose from death, 
And wore on earth, the thorn-girt wreath, 

They reached the balmy Isles of rest, 
And found in Sorrow, golden splendors. 
Deep looking through earth's darkened 
windows. 

Unfolding from each troubled breast. 

Teaching us, Sorrow 1 wrathful nurse I 
Thou wast not wholly made a curse ; 
O thou art made to teach us here ; 
That palaces of gold forbidden, 



14 



Stand but shades of glories hidden, 

That reach at times, our golden sphere. 

Why throbs the breast in depths of grief. 
When the morn exults, and rapturous 
fleets ! 
Hast thou not learned, that Sorrow 
will lay, 
Like a blight in the lily's pure chalice, 
An adder in the path to the palace, 
Harassing thy beautiful day. 

When the heart is alone in its woe — 
See it when the shadows of sorrow enfold. 

Standing steadfast, looking above ; 
The soul with its blest angel attendant, 
Beholding in visions resplendent, 

The homes of its Heaven of love. 

Tell not of the realms beautifully fair. 
Of the Alpine crests of the air; 

But the Life which is more sublime ; 
One who works forever exultant. 
O'er his anguish and trials triumphant. 

Against the curse of his time. 

Our Lives until death, are only a part. 
Of the wonder that throbs in the raptur- 
ous heart. 
Deem not God's laws that govern will 
cease ! 
Sorrow will come in its dark visitation. 
Bringing to us the sweet revelation. 
Of the azures lying in peace. 

Until death, all the crosses we bear, 
Or the murmurs of doubt we may hear, 

Borne when we are drooping and weak. 
Will be changed to glories eternal, 
While nearing the gardens supernal. 

To encourage our Heavenward feet. 



If friends forsake; if fortunes are hurled 
Away in the seas, and the world, 

Seems lost in the shadows of night, 
O, behold the splendid example. 
When clear the glories immantle 

The dauntless who stand in the fight ! 

Stood calmly Ignatious, when the beasts. 
The Roamans around him released, 

That roared and howled for his bio(Kl. 
As he saw the azures unfolding. 
And God in His chariot moving. 

To bear him away from the world. 

Life is noblest that sorrows the most ! 
The season of clouds, not drought and 
thirst. 
Best ripens the grains golden ears. — 
What e'er dissembles, what e'er thou 

fearest. 
Then it is that God will be nearest, 
When streams the bitterest tears. 

go forth to the work of thy days ! 
Our Decembers are moving to Mays. 

Gardens bloom sweetly beyond prison 
bars ! 
Thus are our joys, and the sorrows, 
Changing ever to sweet tomorrows — 

Griefs shining in night like the stars. 

By our work, there are heights to be 

sought. 
There are battles in tears to be fought. 

With our life our selfishness wrought : 
The victors shall shine at the crowning, 
In the hour of that beautiful morning, 

As the perfect and deepeset in thought. 

Ah ! for the sight of a constant heart ! 
Who works with love, life's worthiest 
part. 



15 



And sees with hope its Heaven gkani ; 
As a poet who worketli forever, 
'J'hough he feels his reward is here never, 

IJut still, lives true to his dream, 
'i'iie sorrow, and labor, and strife, 
They measure the meaning of Life. 

Not lives have we, like birds in the light ; 
Not the joy of a constant Eden ; 
l>ut the feeling of one who has ridden, 

Bewildered on mountains by night. 

Man ever looketh into those deeps, 
Whence comes the power of thought — 
then sleeps. 

Still, he hath an answer in his Grief, 
In hours of Angel Visitations, 
With celestial compensations, 

For every seared and withering leaf. 

THE FOREST. 

BREAMS of the wood-lands haunt 
me, 
As I move among the herds of men. 
Dewy leaves are fresh.and sweet, 
Ahme in the forest, deep, 
Where the bending branches meet. 
The wild winds of the glen. 

To night in the forest still. 

No human voice disturbs the spell. 

That lingers here alone with me. 

The sounds that sweep the swaying tree. 

The evening voices deep to me ! 

They chime with yonder distant bell. 

() come from the city's roar and gloom! 

When its lights are burning pale, 
When from revels in the hall, 
Arises clatter from the ball, 
When music's echoes rise and fall, 

dream in raptures in the dale ! 



O sweet to hear, the whippoorwill ! 

Awake the silent, sylvan shade ; 
The robin sing his last farewell, 
And the thrush his secret tell. 
To the crimson shadows of the dell, 

When the golden day mists fade. 

My happiest thoughts are born, 
Where the forest rivei' glides ; 
And in the silence soft and sweet. 
Dear Nature, and my soul doth meet. 
And my heart doth beat and beat, 

While moves the river's rapturous tides. 

Entranced where close the forest flowers, 

I hear the murmurs come and go. 
My heart ! I feel it softly pause, 
While the beauty of the silence draws 
My soul to drink the nectar hours. 

When floats night's music sweet and 
low. 

The fragrant lily petals close. 

And sleep upon the shaded streams ; 
So thus my soul finds long repose, 
While labor's heat no longer glows. 
Where sleep its sweetest blessing knows, 
The rapture of angelic dreams. 

0,here I breathe a constant prayer ! 

In this rich chancel of the woods ; 
A radiance dwelleth through tlieir shades, 
A holy silence solemn made. 
No dismal song from glade to glade, 

For these are God's deep solitudes. 

THE MYSTERIOUS WOODS. 
A DREAM. 

E who believes not in the immortal. 
May not read this dim, and fire- 
light Idyl. 



16 



Or he who, weeping, ne'er was lost, in 

doubt. 
Along the lonely heights of ice bound 

hills; 
Or he, who never thoughtful peered at 

night. 
Up through the deeps of pale, revolving, 

stars. 

Whirl,whirl — the dead leaves whirl ! 'tis 

autumn in the wood, 
The gloomy wood, where balmy summer 

swept her flood ; 
But the chill death of the leaves as they 

dance. 
To the music and wails, of the shuddering 

dales. 
Made me sigh as I gazed in a trance. 

Foggy was night, and dark as a wan- 
dering dearth ; 

And through the drizzle, up to the East, 

One still, and cold, faint, death-pale light. 

Brooded the shadows so still, ground my 
blood like a mill. 

That creaked alone to the Kiddow's flight. 

I wandered down to the dismal, lonely 

dell; 
Not a voice could I hear, but the noisy 

flight, 
Afar in the mist, of the weary wild goose 
That clamored there, lost, in the cold pale 

frost. 
And the crack of the bush to the moose. 

But the little light burned, like a beam 

of faith. 
Till I neared it. a desolate wanderer at 

night 



And friends came to me, as I beat at the 
door, — 

Ah the hearth was bright, with a beauti- 
ful light, 

I glad to lay my trams to the floor. 

The cheerer was drank, in a circle sat we. 
We were three; and I said to the first 

sweet maid, 
I have been thinking along through the 

mist, 
A kind of a dream, that burned like a 

stream 
Of fire that whirled from the east. 

And their eyes dilated, like orbs of the 
stars, 

As I told the dream, by the wizard fire, 

While they looked to the night, and the 
haunted flame, 

The dream of a world, through our con- 
science hurled, 

And men half fear to utter its name. 

I dreamed I lay snow-pale, and dead. — 
'Tis most to much for man to bear. 
This theme, that almost wrecks the heart, 
Whose very word seems phantom in the 

air. 
A vagueness touched me and I slept. — 
I saw a vision golden, pass my way, 
Expanding while my eyes were wet, 
Kise like a prayer, by night and day. 

There came as one sweet charm, 
Through the silver azures of the air. 
Thought; Then stood in nebulous light 
Winged, full glorious for flight. 
Down,down,down, her fingers down. 
She pointed to a dreary waste, 



n 



And vaguely deeper one abyss 
Al)ysnial, as when the horn-ed moon 
Dips over Chiniboraso ajid that plain, 
Where wails Chaos wild with gloom. 

Then swept great winds, demon-borii, 
And through the vast burned lights, 
And half seen hands, near morn 
Keached out through dark myst^erious 

nights, 
I spoke. — Souls murmured with such 

voice, 
That cleaved to yon dim orbs : 
"'Ah Hopeful ! Yon light regain J 
Yon Night, is that cold, silent, land, 
Mortals name Doubt, below these worlds. ' 

I dreaming I was dead, looked earthward 

down, 
Below me rolled the Sun and clouded, 

like a star ; 
And the noise of millions — maiiiac 

gabble rose ; 
And the Earth hung down in that far 

deep 
Dolorous, shining like an orb of gold. 
There, pale,, laid my cerements, cold as 

ice. 
Motionless, And there was one bent down 

in tears, 

Laying upon the snowy sheet, the lilies. 
And dear children gathered, and the 

dawn 
Broke in golden cloud, and rolled 
< »'er my dead form, triumphant till the 

night ; 
I moved not through dim day, when I saw 
A dark procession bear it, clothed in 

dusk. 



Then tinkled low the tassled silver cords, 
As when the babbling dingle stream flows 

down 
Musical along the aisles of Norway's 

sombrous pines 
Processioned on the barren heights of 

snow — 
That shore where billows beat vagu<> 

voiced. 
And then ere night, returned thosi^ mourn^ 

ers home, 
Each to his own conscience, bound in 

gloom ; 
And came a sound of chimes, and prayers 

arose. 
I heard, and stood, moved not up, or 

down, 
For below me what ? around me dark 

intense. 

Then stood up Hope, a queen, bright as 

the dawn, 
With harp of goId,and winged, transcen- 

dent. 
Spoke, gazing by that deep and grim 

abyss. 
"' All souls here must cross " : iind like 

a dim cloud. 
One Spirit passed, indistinct in all the 

night; 
Yet gradually, like the light, looked on 

me. ' 
First I knew not. But Hope spoke; 
"He seeks above the dark abyss Identity .' 

One by one, in silence passed dim forms. 
As when innumerable clouds gather in 

the dawn. 
Upward float from Jungfraw's crest eter^ 
nal, 



18 



Dissolving, half seen, in the silent early 

light. 
Down below the heights flowed rivers of 

tears 
For our lost, and dim Earth's ascended 

dead. 
One was there, seeking up and down the 

waste, 
To identify some dear one of all her race. 
Even Rizpah,moaningforher seven,hung 

sons. 
Still revengful, wailed throughout the 

deep; 
And I sought my dearest, and did not 

know 
Scarcely, whom she had grown, but yet, 

she smiled, 
And like a dim seen morning orb arose. 
Bright, and brighter, than in time gone by. 
But I reached up, climbing higher in the 

dawn. 
Eluding ray embrace, she swifter, rose 
And I a little farther toward the abyss, 
Turned up mine eyes to her, both night 

and morn; 
I, like the broken, half drawn cloud scud, 
Still sweeping o'er the dark, cold, Arctic 

seas. 
Half seen she stood, a j)resence calm , en- 

■ tranced. 
As, when upon the windy coast of Lab- 
rador, 
Or wild Norway, a ship creeps down the 

shore. 
Looming like a ghost through mist and 

moonlight, 
With blanched wings streaming on the 

winds. 



Souls murmured on the seas of ages, half 

seen through time. 
But the green orb they left, rolled on 

below, 
They, coming up an endless corridor. 
Glimmering outward to the infinite deep. 
More than one wore crowns of amaranth 
And gold, with brows upturned and lia- 

loed. 
Thousands bore old marks of galling 

chains, 
And more than one hovered restless on- 
ward, 
Who died, not calm with hope, when 

harsh Law stood 
Unshaken, when the cord touched the 

marrow. 
And was heard through night, one, heavy 

thud. 
When the gallows failed not, and a soul 

rose. 

I saw so dark a heart as his, meet one 
He murdered, coldly in the silent dell. 
Gazing at each other, with a most silent 

voice. 
There one wailed aloud in deep remorse. 
That Law had never reached with iron 

hand, 
Meeting him whom he slew, face to face. 
Wails arose, and the sounding of heavy 

keys. 
All whirled upward like seas of morning- 
stars ; 
Then wild music rang through day and 

night 
Forever; — and Thought said; I touched 
The outmost dim Isles of the Immortals. 
And ten thousand dulcet liarj^s of gold 
awoke 



10 



Amidjithe only light that lit triumphant 
All the murmuring deep of far voices - 
The eternal Light they said, of Hope. 



Whirl, whirl, the red leaves whirl ! 

Dance,dance, dance ! 
I hear a sound' you will not hear ; 
Strong, strong, the lightnings glance ! 

I hear a wind from out the vale : 

])eath, death, death ! 
'Tis autumn in the dark old wood ; 
But life, and spring, shall gild the dale. 

My tears roll down — I fall, I fall ! 

I wake, I wake, I wake ! 
I heard a deep, loud music call. 
Across yon misty forest lake. 



Then from her place, by the smouldering 

fire, 
Agnes arose, the tallest, sweetest of the 

maids — 
Bright to the eve, unclosing saddest 

sweetest eyes. 
"Thou hast been a long, a long, sad way," 
She said. And Merriam laid in her silken 

lap 
His head — the man avIio told this dream. 
All his dark curls so richly streaming 

down, 
And by his side, his panting, faithful 

hound. 
Then her maid took up his shield, and 

laid it still 
Against the stony wall, whereon the fire. 
Danced like a wizard wild, through all 

the night. 



A BEAM OF LIGHT. 

NE day a lily girl did pass, 
Near to my study doors ; 
The brightness of her looks did seem, 
As golden as the flowers. 

All night the silver starlight weaves. 

Across the silent deep. 
Its lucid tissued mantle bright. 

While I can scarcely sleep ; 

For seeing still, across my dreams. 

That glorious vision fly. 
The glow that flashes constant there, 

From out her bright dark eye. 

She is not haughty in her way, 
Nor wears she bluest silk, 

But meekest of the roving fawns, 
Wlien down they stoop to drink. 

Her step comes gentler than the night, 
When sunlight fades away ; 

Her presence is an Angel's flight. 
Her cheer, bright as the day. 

She lolls not like an idle queen. 
But toils mid noise and whirl ; 

They call her here, and she is sweet, 
The little " Berry Girl. " 

Each night she passes by my door, 
When vesper bells strike low ; 

She cares not for the bustling hall, 
But cheers the low in woe. 

Her smiles are like the coming spring, 
Warm after long cold hours ; 

A sunbeam in her mother's house, 
A flower among the flowers. 



20 



]>ear as tlie lily's perfect bloom. 

And beautiful as they ; 
All night a sleeping Angel here, 

A sniile of Heaven by <Iay^ 

"Vi^ hard for life and \vhirling AVoe, 

To bring such ones decay. 
<)n high there seem« a call and need, 

They soonest fade away. 

They say no sorrow's shade should fold^ 

When lily girls go by ; 
They are God' s flowers in this sad world, 

God's smile in their dark eye. 

They are His blest embodied dreams, 

That move about us here, 
Wherein He Works His dearest charm ; 

A radiance with no tear. 

If such as these, do dwell below, 
To soothe all grief for you. 

What are the Angels on those shores 1 
Across the distant blue. 



THE GRAVE OF CHANNING. 

T^N THAT darkness, under Willows, 
•^ The sunlight falls between 
The low and solemn branches. 
Where daisies love to lean. 

The sweetness of the shadows, 

In silent glory seem. 
Like blessings deep and hallowed, 

As Angel glances beam. 



Across his grave they glimmer. 

All still from head to foot, * 

Like vague answers to our questions, 
Why Go<l so scaled the book. 

'Tis here they watch at evening. 

When thou art far away. 
And they flit when soft the moon-beams. 

Across the head stone play. 

'Tis here in dusky twilight. 

The winds enchanted rest, 
When the golden vapors linger, 

Across the silent waste. 

Life's tramping sweeps unheeded. 

By him who lies at rest ; 
Uttered not his benediction. 

Cold hands upon his breast. 

O linger Night, in all thy beauty ! 

O smile around the place, 
When still, bright, stars are watching. 

Alone the marble face. 

In the wonder of the silence, 
There is no touch of gloom ; 

What seems so, is the holy calmness. 
That dwells around his tomb. 

Sleep on, with the pleasant shadows, 
What can disturb thy rest ? 

Not the praises of the nations ! 
Thy sleep is with the blest. 

Past the portal, past the places. 
Where Earth's wild ^ons turn. 

Thou wakest in the life supernal. 
Star of the souls that yearn. 



iV-S. 



^^31^ 





•^ 



JOY'S HOUR. 



JOY, Joy ! forever more ! 
. A glorious beam is born ! 
The star suns shake, from shore to sliore. 
And wondrous breaks the morn. 

The meteors burn the spangled floor, 

Exultant hurl their lance; 
Joy, —joy ! forever more ! 

They dance their golden dance. 

Wake '.—Wake the dolorous Hour, 
From out her wasting sleep ! 

Waste not life's resplendent power. 
For glorious lays the deep. 

Joy ! Joy ! forever more ! 

The systems roll their orbs by night. 
Heroic Mars no grief deplores. 

High burns his crimson light. 

O let the heart be like red Mars ! 

A hero mid our tears, 
A soul that onward moves like stars, 

Among the million years. 



No grief is in the morning stars. 

They burn eternal morn, 
They are the dust that drifts afar, 

From God's fast footsteps borne. 

Joy ! Joy ! — Sound o'er and o'er ! 

Sing loud the purple hills ; 
Sing the seasons summered hour, 

Warbled babbles from sweet rills. 

Joy ! Joy. forever more ! 

Our life's harsh wave that beats the 
wall, 
At last must break on shore. 

And break in thousand jewels all. 

Sing! Sing! All beauty ever more ! 

Laughing Nature is my song ; 
Her smiles are sweet of yore, 

Ring out Thy chimes and long. 

harmony divine ! 

For man is but the best of thee, 
My heart a part of thine, 

Thy Joy a love to me. 



12 



CON AMORK. 

JJ, NGRILY moans the better soul 
"^^ In liim who never looks in love 
Upon the j?lovv of scarlet in the west, 
Or on the sweet ungathered lily hell 
That blooms in humble worship on the 
waste. 

To hearts who look at these with love, 
A secret, darling, murmur falls 
From out life's vast dim, doubtful, deep : 
Who never looks, hath lost the glow 
That Nature gives the heart that loves. 

The bright Day, like one's last dream, 
Departing, wondrous, through her windy 

gate, 
Met Night with brow serene: 
And coursing heaven about the bars of 

gold, 
Her chariot sun, burned vast in state, 
To yon dim rim of this wild world. 

Bathed in the crimson of the gold pur- 
ple even, 

Down 'mid the willows, I watched by 
the stream. 

Like the eyes of my beloved languishing 
there, 

The evening clouds fold, in a long, sweet 
dream. 

Steered by a vision o'er the soft beating 
river. 

My thought wafted lightly, to the sound 
of the oar; 

I deem my heart might float over for- 
ever, 

I would languish on earth never more. 



It was in the deep, sweet light, gently 
fading away, 

The visions of ages came to me in an 
hour, 

And at night came Heaven more glow- 
ing with stars. 

For I could gaze deeper than ever by 
day. 

I said to my heart ; O make nw a grave 
By a stream like this ! where nought can 

oppress, 
Not the lore of the earth, its science s<» 

wild. 
Not the grumblings of doubt, 1 with 

nature at rest. 

And here in my dream, by the beautiful 

river, 
Repose softly folded, my fluttering wings; 
And instead of dark night in my heart 

there was day, 
The voices so sweet, the loved, the 

familiar. 

THP: POET'S HOUR. 

HEN the wondrous hour oi 
twilight falls. 
Thought lulls the Aveary breast, 
And the deep'ning murmurs through Her 
halls. 
Abide with me at rest. 

The lightest clouds are floating by the 
bars 
That lie in sweetest peace, 
Encircling round the evening's sleepy 
stars. 
The fine and golden fleece. 



13 



These songs that flit about me evermore. 

Are like the quiet clouds ; 
A dreamful presence moving in each 
hour ; 

They fly in rapturous crowds : 

Around my biding star of hope, and 
faith, 

Nightly do they rise, 
Like canticles from life's celestial deep, 

To cheer the sleepless eyes. 

Where 'er we wander, step, — or sigh — 
or breathe, 

At home, or by the dead ; 
Some tenderest beauty constant wreathes, 

Some rose hath sweetly laid. 

At these ambrosial times, the sweetness 
falls, 
Like perfumes from the flowers : 
With glimpses radiant from immortal 
halls. 
These are my Golden Hours. 



There is a dark and holy deep, 

Beyond life's sunset bars ! 
And though the mind be tranced in sleep. 

There spheres ten thousand stars : 

And each low whisper through the night 
And each sweet song we wrought, 

All happy visions drenched with light, 
Are pilot stars of thought : 

Across the intellect's vast deep, 
All through my golden hours, 

In strange fantastic lines they sw^eep, 
In light resplendent showers. 



HOURS OF WORK. 
FT ALL not life a vision golden. 



G 



It is a real mine of gold ; 
Here have delved the workers olden, 
Then be thou also bold. 

Uttered this in every language ; 

Most useful are our days, 
There is something to be done forever, 

Falls dearth when heart delays. 

Work is glorious, working Heavenward, 
Dark death is not the end ! 

All nature points its finger upw^ard : 
Take thou, what God shall send. 

Each one hath his holy mission. 
Why linger wasting more? 

Work ! and leave thy work behind thee 
Help others to the shore ; 

That when loved ones walk this desert 
dreary, 

They may see our light 
Burning on life's rocky bastions, 

Guiding in their night. 

Cast thy hopes upon the waters, 

Ten fold they will return; 
Push forward in life's golden triumph, 

Never backw^ard turn. 

In this world so rich in glory. 

There is a toil sublime. 
Fall no more in heartless slumber, 

On this wide track of time. 

God guides, forever and forever ; 

Mind not the darkest fate ; 
The holy have gone on before us, 

Trustful to the gate. 



14 



ANGEL HOURS. 

fALLS round us when tlie day de- 
parts, 
When flower bells close their l)h)<)ni, 
A low, sweet voice, for weary hearts, 
Who waste alone. 

The Angel foot falls come and go, 

As they never move by day. 
From homes, from whence all glories fl(nv 
Then glide away. 

In these calm hours they come, 

To hover round our faith and care. 
We feel them near us in our home. 
Soft on the stair. 

They flit, these gentle forms. 

Like answers to our prayers. 
Along our pleasant garden lawns. 
When God declares. 

Most welcome are they round my hearth. 

When grief doth move my breast, 
And Hopes lay deep in coldest earth. 
They give me rest. 

Not from afar is wafted here, 

These glimmers of Celestial Morn, 
These lights do shine amid our fear. 
Throughout the gloom. 

In those high hours of Thought, 
When darkness fills my room, 
Then, Blest hour ! I rest in trust, 
With God alone. 



ASPIRATION'S HOUR. 

URNING,— Burning !— 

Trailing, like a meteor wild, and 

bright, 
(Ver Earth's abysmal night ! 

Sighing, — Sighing, — 
For the immortal life of thought abo\ i-. 
Through vast decades of Love ! 

Flitting, — Flitting, — 
Amid our world of hesitations, and of 

fears, 
The liome of ceaseless tears — 

Such is Aspiration ! 
The golden glory in the human heart, 
The seed ere leaves depart : 

It dwelleth restless — deep, 
Like some dim fable of a burnished 

dream. 
Rather felt than seen. 

Most constant here below; 
'f he palpitating deep of our emotions. 
Roaming like dim oceans: 

Triumphant in our night 
Of weariness, and ever dark despair. 
It beams through our pale air : 

Waiting — Watchful — Hopeful, 
Through life's most solemn shadows, and 
the gloom, 
Our soul it doth illume. 

Feverish in dim light, 
Sits in loneliness the striving human soul. 
And hears the anthems roll. 



15 



Undaunted in each hour, 
The earnest upward looking of tlie 
prayerful nations, 
Such is Aspiration. 



LOVE'S HOUR. 

AKLING !— In thy love-sweet eyes, 
V In whose deeps a glory lies, 
Sweet like day-closed purple dies, 

Hound orbed, that like dawn dilate, 
Wlien in noon of thought elate, 
Dream in langors soft, and deep ! 

Thou, like some wandering star of night, 
Heart beating in May's first light, 
Unlwunden still, Thou free delight ! 

What soft airs calm around thee blow — 
What glories from the roses glow, 
I'hat smile when near to them you go ! 

l*ure lily heart, that knows not night ! 

So dreaming evermore in light, 

Those full orbs haunt me day and night. 

So clear, those round, impassioned eyes, 

Kvermore to me all else dies 

When thought from their full azure flies, 

And when alone in dream-land wood, 
I see thee down recline and wooed 
By the spring suns, most golden flood, 

I long to be the flower that feels 
Thy gentle palm, and quickly yields 
To those sweet love-eyes, azure fields. 



KNCOUKAGEMENT. 

IT N words of Aspiration, 

^ Th.e heart will find a Kest ; 

And with deep solicitation, 

They calni the hmely breast. 

One sweet hour of love, and pleasance. 
Then some dark shadow flies : — 

Trial brings the Omnipresent ; 

Smiles known in angel eyes. 

Maiden beauty ever weepeth, 

Near Heaven's golden gates, , 

As yon star so sweetly sleepeth 
In twilight's peaceful deeps. 

In our most dark afflictions, 

When we are nearing Home; 

We hear sweet bells upon the bastions, 
Sound through life's valley lone ; 

Dear ones from darkened alters, 

Pass upward toward the gate, — 

Youth, and aged ones who falter, 

Hear those sweet bells and wait. 

O, wait thou long, and be thou patient, 
Through the toiling of our life ! 

Soon by the swinging gates, transcendent 
We shall enter from the strife . 

O hear ! those Heavenly bells loud ringing, 
From depths of distant blue, 

Or from each hamlet steeple bringing. 
Songs sweet, the high, the true. 

See our Hopes, like little children, 
Move round our open doors. 

Our Hopes are Angels of this Eden, 
This happy earth of ours. 



16 



They note the beautiful, blest chiming, 
In Golden Hours they mount, 

At the call of the sweet bells ringing, 
Toward God's eternal fount. 

What light breaks o'er life's closing 
Sabbath 

When sounds its sunset bell. 
For its music mingles with the echoes 

From Heaven chording well. 

O hear, the Heavenly bells loud calling ! 

Each day we hope and love, — 
We go and with rich blessings falling , 

To chancels filled above. 



HOURS OF REST. 
THE SONG OF THE NIGHT 
WINDS. 

j'ER the still earth. Love, reclining. 
Beautiful Wind of the night ! 
Why smilest with day's declining, 

In slumber through deep crimson 
light 1 
Are the shadows of day less enchanting, 

Beholding Urania so bright, 
Than the twilight's fair mantling. 
Beautiful Wind of the night ? 

As I rest in the grove dearest. 

To the thoughts of my checkered 
hours. 
Why then comest thou nearest ? 

Bringing the balm from the bowers. 

Though friends may have departed, 
Thy touch is welcome, as sweet ; 

Thy breath charmeth my heart. 

Whispering abroad from the deep. 



I feel thy still subtle, presence, 
But never can touch thy form ; 
And hear thy language chanted. 
Through thy lyres till the chill dawn. 

O, why is my heart so restless ! 
Whenever thou takest thy flight ( 
And Joys of the day so tasteless, 
Beautiful Wind of the night ! 



Rapture it is when skies are clear. 
And the grass is tall and green. 

To di'ink again the cheer. 
At the side of the wood-land tarn ; 
To glide through the path o'er the lawn, 
To nature's fragrant groves return, 
And the song of the Night Winds hear. 

To feel the murmuring round the wood, 
Thrill through my being deep and full, 

Fall like a gentle dream ; 
Watching the swaying golden rod, 
And the deep grasses gently brood. 
Among the lilies of the flood. 

Kissing the dear old stream. 

Dear are these woods, where droop 
The boughs of ever fragrant pine. 

And flowerets hang in rest, — 
Dearest, when the low, sweet, Wind, 
Sweeps o'er the cushioned moss, where, 

twine 
The wild rich perfumed eglantine. 

Swaying the wild bird's nest. 

Here midst flowers, music softly falls, 
From the brooklets gurgling by. 

Singing with the wind; 
And here the golden dragon fly. 
Fluttering through the live long day. 



17 



Musing, seemeth ne'er to die, 
Doth spread his gauzy wing. 

There is no place so sweet as this, 
Made welcome by the Evening Wind, 

Where falls an influence deep, 
Through all transparent wells of mind 
Reflecting thought from tree and vine, 
Thoughts like these flowers of jessamine, 

That wind so sweet in sleep. 

Here mid these pleasant woods, 
'Tis ever sunset, breathing soft — 

A low voiced place of dreams. 
O'er-head throughout the shades, 
Loom purple hills, where lave 
Deep mellow lights, amid the waves 

Of ceaseless flowing streams. 

Here ambrosial shadows play. 
Here are glades that softer lie, 

Than fields of finest light, 
That wander near the paths of Suns — 
Softer lie, than flowers in palms I love, 
In lands where cooes the gentle dove, 

Where falls no shades of night. 

Deep woods, fair hills, and green wood 

dell! 
Alone with thee the moon looks down, 

Then all is calm and still. 
Here I can live a constant youth. 
Beneath this happy green wood roof: 
Thy umbrage fair that spreads aloof — 

Did always lead my will. 

And more gently thou, when night, 
Hovers round the old tree tops. 
And winds do murmur low. 
Thy shapes do beckon to my breast, 
And lull my cares, as in yon nest, 



The thrushes brood their young at rest. 
When homes are still below. 

You hint to me, O silent wood ! 
When spring time swells the buds and 
bloom, 

A long and active growth. 
Life ever onward grows like thee ; 
Its every shrub, and flower, and tree, 
Brings each new year, fresh fruit to me, 

Each year a higher worth. 

Life is a deep, and sober wood ; 

It has its growths, and under growths. 

High looms the storm seared pine — 
There are deep troubles steeped in toil, 
The battle and the fierce turmoil : 
New settlers on the forest soil : 

Delvers in the new found mine. 

Evening Wind, sweet evening wind ! 
Well falls the songs that thou canst bring, 

That through my wood-lands ring ; 
For after toil, how sweet is rest ! 
You come sweet wind to fan our breast, 
Lulling the woods from out the West, 

And healing while you sing. 

Here outstretched in mellowest light, 
As wafted from some hight divine, 

My pleasant wood-lands lay. 
Ambrosial airs are round me now. 
And the golden shadows come and go, 
Tingeing the green woods sunny dew. 

With the rainbows softest ray. 

Here the rich rose gives her sweetest 

blush. 
Sweeping her skirts against the spray 

Of streams that leap the cleft, 
Echoing through this vale away. 



18 



Long lingering at the verge of day, 
While one mysterious voice did say, 
" This is the place for Rest." 

Here, the humble violet reflects 
Its finest purple from the hills, 

In all the winding breaks, 
And on the stained and crystal rocks, 
As beautiful the iris droops. 
With all her delicate, fair looks, 

Looking downward in the lake. 

Along the hights the bell flower sleeps, 
And gracefully the daisy loves, 

To kiss the low sweet ground. 
All life hath rest, but human thought, 
The deepest power which hath been 

wrought. 
Eair Nature resteth long and soft. 

While rests our low green mound. 

My fellows, weary with harsh toil 
(Jif gleaning in the fields of Time, 

The binding of the sheaves — 
Weary with the burning, tropic suns. 
The prat'ling of so many tongues — 
() rest thou where still waters run ! 

Below the fragrant leaves. 

O hear — the Winds breathe sweet and 

low ! 
Listen in one long, calm, repose : 

Of Life this is the best — 
And letting wild Despair go by. 
Nor think that thou would wish to die, 
But ever in the green wood lie. 

To live in Golden Rest. 

There is a Song that is strange and holy, 
That is wafted from a deep, 



Where trouble ceases wholly, 
A sound that wails not round the reef. 

Here is peace that is uttered ever, 
From my dear, known evening wind : 

And I wait for the daylight's fading. 
For the Joys that it will bring. 

I can see vast and airy bridges. 
And the silk sails softly loom. 

Borne on ancient gilded barges, 
Under the arches move. 

But the breath that stirs the billows, 
And soothes my evening hours. 

Did fill the silken sails of Caesar, 
And wooed old Egypt's flowers. 

Then on Calvary's hight was wafted, 
This self-same evening wind. 

And I feel my heart uplifted. 
With the history it doth bring. 

There are books I have been reading. 
As I sat at eve, when smiled the breeze, 

But r laid them down in silence. 

For the sweet music through the trees. 

I can see the distant reaches. 

Thy chariots of cloud in air. 
And Thou pacing sandy beaches, 

Whirling from thy distant stair. 

Then thou steppest softly. 

Near our swinging chamber door. 

Like a dearest friend so boldly. 
Imploring us to weep no more. 

Now thou sweepest lightly, 

Thy magic fingers o'er the keys 

Of harp strings throbbing nightly, 
Low chanting holy symphonies. 



19 



Wild Winds ! in Thy soft slumber, 
Tell all thou may constant see ! 

(), ere my months are numbered, 
May my best feelings be as free 



Tiien on high, and round about me, 
Did the Winds give me their answer, 
Sounding like some heavenly sea. 



" I follow where the roses blow. 
And kiss the tropic isles. 
Where sweet ambrosial gardens grow, 
Or spring the undiscovered Niles, 

< )n distant shores where roars the sea. 
Are happy lins thou hast not found. 
And many a silent sunny lea 
For men when thou art under ground. 

I know where happier Edens lay, 
Than worldly sordid hearts can know ; 
Where mornings never rise in grey, 
As by thy garden gates below. 

1 follow where the perfumes waft 
Tlieir breath along the silent deep, 
Or where the gay fly flutters past. 
Where shuts the orange flowers in sleep 

I wander down the dells at night, 
Where all is soft and still. 
And haste to meet the morning light. 
Silvered round the purple hill. 

Where e'er that angel feet may pass, 
I come and go at dawn. 
And move along the wavy grass, 
( )r skirt the forests velvet lawn. 



The liglit is not so blithe as I, 

When round my paths I come and go. 

I roam, I sigh, I swiftly fly. 

To freshest tasselled swamps below. 

All day I drink from springy fells, 
Where spreads the fly his golden wings, 
And beauty unmolested dwells. 
Around the low-lands pleasant lins." 



MURMURS. 

I SAW the stars, bow. down through 
purple shadows, 
When day had closed its weary eye. 
Lie radiant o'er heaven's azure splendors. 
As calms o'er billows lie. 

I felt the influence of a constant pre- 
sence, 

Move o'er me through the night, 
I felt the Beautiful in blest attendance, 

Descending like the light. 

I feel my pulses throbbing nightly. 
To a music low and deep, 

x\nd the angels touch the strings so 
lightly, 
In slumber with incessant beat. 

There is a breath of still, subtle beauty, 

Ever moving by my side, 
As low be.lls heard in the evening distance, 
As ocean's ceaseless, murmuring tide. 

Like one who lays and hears these voices 
whisper. 

Afar o'er silent town and grove; 
As one dreams of a dear departed sister, 

I hear the murmurs from above. 



20 



THOUGHT'S HOUR. 

mISE from the spiritual deep, and 
linger, 
Like the breath of even ! 
Rise o'er the heart, sure as ones fate 
forever, 
Sweet Thought by angels given ! 

So deep, so wild, it comes unbidden, 

Mounting like an upward flame, 
Hast'ning to meet its element, driven. 

As cloud-racks from earth's billow 
main. 
Soul's furrowed ocean moans all night 
in sorrow, 

When dark Thoughts flutter down, 
Beating against Life's desolate morrow, 

And wasteful till the dawn. 

Flies from the aspiring soul and wanders 

Angelic Thought, as Love 
Wings to the last brink of life, then shud- 
ders 

Ere it cross the tracks above. 

Like maidens happy eyes dilating. 
In love-sweet, dawn-sweet, hours, 

Thought swells in all divinest teaching, 
Sheds down gold glorious dowers. 

Fails not burning in its awful orbit, 
Past seas of Heaven's suns. 

Whirling as the vast fire crowned comet. 
And with immortal tongues; 

As a vapor dense, Thou goest. 

Though thou meet worlds. 
And though shivered where thou wooest. 

Again thy glory rolls: 



Or as a Plutonian Giant conquered 
Rises with His spear once more. 

Thought moveth still triumphant Lord, 
On Life's wild thundering shore. 

MAN. 

fHE schemes and the wanderings are 
over, 
Toward the evening my work hath 
declined, 
The gates at the fount shun forever. 
Snuffed is the dim candle of mind. 
Soundeth no more the rattle of battle. 
The soldiers have all passed out. 
Life's banners are furled on the bastions. 
Faint the lights on our captured redoubt. 

This is the song Man singeth forever. 
As he looks o'er his well foughten field ; 
Though some of life's grain lays trampled, 
A little is saved, caught on his shield. 
His fate was cast in the sweet long ago. 
The dies were the same as a Saviour's or 

Caesar, 
But the tears that he sheds of his woe 
Blind a few ere they stem the rolling 

life river. 

Mid cyclic storms there wailed a dark 

ocean. 
And chaos was on the dim deep ; 
Then gleamed the first glow of emotion. 
Faint as the nebulas wild heat. 
Like a wisp in the desolate marshes. 
Soul was first wafted o'er the dark gloom, 
Then first were the grim sentinel 

watches — 
Came up to the soul, the wild billows 

boom. 



21 



Thou art the same in all desolate ages ! 

The absolute ! the uttermost thought of 
God! 

Each soul o'er the dark billows will hover, 

And thy bones will be dust for the sod. 

Thou art loved, and so were the thou- 
sands ! 

Thou art hated, and so were the dead ! 

Thou hast plans, so had the millions ! 

Art proud ! but nations in earth will be 
laid. 

Thou art the Glow in a twilight ! 
A spell between night and the day ; 
Poets have fancies, thou art the real ! 
Beautiful ages for thee pass away. 
In the wonderful days of the future, 
When the soul is flitting through the 

sweet years. 
() how, and where, shall be our identity "? 
How meet friends ? who walk the lone 

abbeys in tears. 

THE OUTLOOK. 

I WATCHED upon the summerd hill, 
O, what sweet slumber in the air ! 
What landscapes soft and still — 
What songs glide up the golden stair ! 

What cities lie with guilded turets there ; 

What iron hammers loudly beat ; 
What sounds come up from cankering 

care ! 
What wails from out the noisy street. 

But I think, while glows the dreaming 
plain. 
Of the tears that flow in woe ; 
Of the suffering, trouble, and pain. 



That dwells in the thousand homes 
below. 

I thought of the chamber lone. 
With the curtains down, all dark and 
still. 
Where dear ones weep at the bedside 
long. 
Below my bright green hill. 

Why should I all happy be 'i 
But the great sun rolled on, and on ; 

And a grief was wafted up to me, 
Cold tears on the brow of summer 
dawn. 

I thought of the weary laid at rest. 
Who hear no more the tramping up 
and down, 
what silence in the brooding west ! 
What dim, mysterious, shadows on the 
morn. 

What happy maids gone to the feast ! 

What cheer comes upward unto me ? 
What hearts with tender feelings beat ! 

What marriage chimes rise wild with 
glee. 

What darling eyes seem sweet, 
What Life doth pace its golden sands ! 

What funeral trains pass down the street ! 
What wails from desolated bands. 

HoAv cold they seem ! the dreaded crowd, 
They heedless pass yon house of woe, 

And youth's sweet laughter wild and loud 
With all that hurry to and fro. 

And this I thought ere happier noon ; 
Here I was like some pebble by yon 



22 



A fleeting mist below the summer moon, 
To trust, and never more complain. 

Each man hath his still, o' er looking place, 

His own loved silent hill, 
Where from he views his life, as in one's 
face 

We read a hallowed will. 

GLEAM 
OF A GOLDEN HOUR. 

T^N SWEET days of the eternal, 
jy? When this life,schooling disappears. 
We shall know its hardest lessons. 
Were blessings wild with tears ; 

Though some hours were full of darkness, 
God's plan was best above ; 

And to us in morn all golden, 

What seemed reproof was love. 

When our friends are lowered downward 

Into the dark still graves ; 
When our weary souls departing. 

Look over roaring waves ; 

Then — we should not murmur 

On this dark track of Time ; 
Though our prayers seem here unan- 
swered — 
God's wisdom more than thine ! 

And when has died thy dearest. 
You kiss no more that cheek, 

A wiser hand hath oft bereft thee, 
Why wilt thou sit and weep '? 

In oft remember'd childhood. 

Our mother's love denied ; 
So He withholds in kindness. 

Life's sweets placed by our side. 



Life's cup of bubbling, bitter fennel, 
We scarce can brook to drink ; 

Ah, Heaven pours this sorrow's portion ! 
How dare we pause or shrink ! 

Blame not the frost that takes thy lilies, 

Bear thy sorrows, fears. 
Lightly like the Celestial Graces, 

Be calm — although in tears. 

We all shall learn this life-long lesson : 
Our plans are not the best ! 

God sends Grief in love, within revealing 
The glory and a rest. 

If we could liurl life's gates asunder, 

Let the vast fires be seen. 
Know how God works within the bastions, 

Then doubt would be a dream. 

Not yet — will be those golden portals 
opened. 
Not yet, shall we see all ! 
Slowly His spring time opes the flower 
bells. 
Sweet by the sunny wall. 

We must toil and bear, till coming- 
shoreward, 

We find our nobler rest. 
Far from the hearing of the billows. 

That rave across the waste. 

God sees ! who else can fathom. 
Why we must weep and wait f 

Yet we shall know in coming ages, 
He perfect moulds our fate. 

Some time — when all these perturbations 
Cease, and like one glorious star. 

We look back o'er earthly aspirations, 
Shall we be seen, just as we are. 







o o o 

-^ = ~ 

tH ^ o 

3 m 5 

S o g 

2 ^ =« - 






#" 



->^^^mMm*-^^ 




^Be- 



Pf ID GOLDEN Suns, and burning 
winds, 

Vacation days in splendor came, 
\Vl;en the dog star held his yearly reign, 
And calmly slept the dark blue main. 

Meridian high the orbs had rode, 
And glowed to all the silver flood; 
Then launching on a pebbly floor. 
We started for the Southern Shore. 

Ah dreamy shore, tbat lays embraced. 
By rocky reaches cold in face ! 
When softly in the summer time. 
Loved Zephyr tones the evening wind. 

O dreaded shore in snow-beat nights ! 
When wildly flash the beacon lights. 
When the sailor spies his native lands, 
And grasps the wheel with icy hands. 



O deathly shore, when on thy rocks, 
The billows shake their angry locks ! 
When not a gull wakes to her flight. 
Where loudly howls the wind all night. 



BUT we left the boat house' dusky roof, 
And the gentle river flowed between 
Fair isles and coves of darling green, 
That laid like girlhood in her dream. 

We sailed along each sunny spot. 
And marked how well each cunning grot 
That spanned the islet's circling rim, 
Heard all the river ripples sing. 

From shore to shore, the grasses bend. 
In gentle sleep to each soft wind ; 
And the stones receive their shadows fair, 
Reposing in the noon-tide air. 



The wind crept by our little sail, 
And murmured to the leeward isle, 
And sweeping all the happy shore, 
Made seaward by the Adams tower. 

The meadows laid in peaceful sleep ; 
The flowers, they danced in morning dew ; 
And when the ripples broke the sweep 
Of stream, they did not seem to weep. 

Then to my heart, I calmly said ; 
What makes thee beat so calm to day ? 
Then came answer ; "This cheers my way. 
To sail so still ; with soft winds play ;" 

"Or hear the ripples gurgle by ; 
Or in the lap of Ocean lie, 
To hear the whispers from the deep. 
That wrap me in Elysian sleep." 



TOWARD the shore's long way again ]• 

gazed. 
From the boat house, gliding soft away. 
The quaint old place where gunners stay. 
And watch the autumn skies all day. 
They sit fast by the dark old doors. 
And dream of meadows far away. 
Or seem to see the moon-beams play, 
Along the silent shores of grey — 
Where all night long they soon will watch 
And Avith a hearty welcome hear. 
The wary wild duck hovering near. 
Low paddling in the waters clear. 
Dingy brown the rafters stretch 
Along the boat house dusky roof. 
Where hang the forms of duck and coot, 
Decoj's to swim the silver reach. 
Near by some silent island beach. 



Old kettles hang from rusty nails. 
And seem allmost to boil again. 
To utter forth their curious tales, 
That hunters hear from camp fire flames, 

Or sailors know, who shift the sails. 
From peg to peg the fish lines hang, 

With waiting bait upon the hook. 
Yet here receiving now and then, 

A full, but dreamy eager look. 
hunter with the longing eye ! 
Soon thou shalt hear the plover fly. 
The music of the wild ducks call. 
Soft through the autumn twilight fall. 

TEARS to the Shore we are leaving be- 
hind us ! 
With steeple, and farm, and home. 
Where friends perchance ever may miss 
us, 
As o'er the waters we roam. 

what shall we meet so kindly to greet us, 
As our dear friends at home ! 

Or what dark vapors to haunt us, 
As we ride the white crests of foam ! 

Ah me ! the dark wave may engulf us, 
The dear ones see us no more ; 

O what but our God to protect us ! 
From a grave by the old South Shore. 

waters so blue, what is there beyond us 
That mouldeth my moment of fear ! 

Is it the boat that scarcely can float us. 
What is it that whispers so clear ? 

Though the Ocean of opal heave round us. 
How wonderful seem we to float. 

Though storms perchance may sweep, 
near us. 
Round our own little boat. 



5 



But we are friends, and a love doth en- 
fold us, 
Of sister and brother, and man ; 
And tliough the dark sea should roll o'er 
us, 
We shall meet in a happier land. 

I think we are friends, and something 
doth bind us, 
True love that breaks never in twain, 
For I know that death will never all 
part us, 
If we sink on tlie billowy main. 

Then good by to the shore fast flying 
from us ! 

To friends whose love will remain; 
O that more faith be in store for us ! 

When we are all meeting again. 



WITH murmured winds, we noiseless flew 
Along the rivers deep'ning blue. 
And sailed near by old Quincy Point, 
Where the summer balms the shores 

anoint. 
We passed the tide, and reach of sand, 
That closed us in on every hand ; 
We passed the timber where the ship 
Was built, and launched to meet the brink 
Of ancient Ocean sounding near. 
Where sailors laugh in joke and cheer. 
We passed near by the old point bridge, 
Whose shores were ruffened on each edge, 
And heard the horses merry prance 
Along the old and ridgy planks ; 
And as we sailed far on the stream, 
Their echoes sounded as in dreams, 
We hear the far off prancing steads. 



That fly o'er mystic grounds and meads. 
Then colored deep from shore to shore, 
Spread pavilions burnished o'er. 
With red and blue, and many a dye, 
That danced in rain-bows to tl)eeye; 
And flags were streaming far in air, 
Making all the fairy scene so fair; 
Then echoing out from noisy floors, 
Rose music from pavilion doors. 
The harpers and the players stood, 
Each in their place, and at their word, 
Came maids with flowing locks. 
As sunny ripples move about the rocks. 
Then quick the call for dancers there, 
AVhile dancing, driving down dull care ; 
And sweet the music's mingled swell. 
Whispering to the heart, that all was well. 
Then hoot, and laugh, and smile and call, 
Were heard amid the happy footstep's fall 
And Love's light glanced from eye to eye 
A something dear that should not die. 
Around and far the echoes fly. 
O'er bluest sea, or bluer sky. 
And sweeping round our little boat, 
The music's echo seemed to float, 
Away, away, to kiss the deep. 
And rock the ripples blue to sleep ; 
Or round the rocky headlands sweep ; 
And round our hearts that could not weep 
But sniiled and beat to hear the sea, 
Echo back the elfin notes in glee. 

DOWN came the twilight's crimson ray ! 
The dancers had their gala day. 
And ceased the music, ceased the noise, 
From off the quaint pavilion floors ; 
And hurrying toward the steamer's quay. 
They pushed and cheered where still she 
lay. 



6 



Then on board arose once more, 
The music echoing to the shore ; 
Farewell, farewell pavilions gay ! 
Rang from her,decks as she made way. 
And dipping toward the Ocean blue, 
To our lone boat they waved adieu. 
Swan-like though vast, she ploughed the 

brine, 
Soft sailing at the day's decline. 



SWEET o'er her shining sides did lean, 
Many a blue eyed girl in her love dream 
She framed while pacing round the shore, 
Or when she tripped the dancing floor. 
One dreamed of fairest homes, and eyes, 
That always met in lover's smiles, 
And stores of richest, happy, days, 
As before her all her future lays. 
One dreamed that she had netted there, 
A youtlif ul butterfly of air ; 
That she had twined her golden thread 
Of love, around his heart and head. 
One felt her cheek with color flush. 
That she had made one rustic blush. 
And silent in her heart of hearts, 
Had felt the pang of Cupid's darts. 
One dreamed perchance that bluer eyes 
Than hers, had sundered all the ties 
That round her lover lightly weave, 
Changed her sweet morn to bitter eve. 
And there was one who groped apart, 
Though still burned summer in her heart, 
And forty winters cold had past, 
Yet she had struck the chord at last. 
And dreams were sweet of wedding 

flowers, 
Of mansions built with golden towers, 
Of happy children gathering round, 



In homes where wealth's of love abound. 
But the white steamer floated on. 
Like a fair majestic swan, 
And beautiful it seemed to move. 
Deep freighted with the hearts in love 
As, classic legends quaintly told, 
When Cupid rode the swan of old. 



AH ah ! look back on blooming shore. 
And mark the Blue Hill line once more. 
Deep purpling in the twilight air, 
Tlie background in our voyage so fair. 
Soft they swelled beyond the blue 
Of river; still from the sky they drew 
The beauty of the evening cloud 
That golden o'er them constant flowed, 
Bright mantles o'er the ledges threw. 
And crimsoned all the depths below. 
The wind was light and toward the sea, 
Outward from the hills sailed we. 
Before us all in beauty lay. 
Where well the evening shadows play, 
Old Pettick's bare and treeless isle. 
Expanding in its crescent mile. 
Old Prince's Head its sullen height. 
Hid o'er its shoulders Boston light. 
And woodless dozed throughout its shore. 
Hearing at eve the sailor's oar. 
Old phantom head-land dim and sear. 
Long have you heard the pilots cheer ! 
And in weary years gone by, 
Have seen the reddened rockets fly ; 
Have felt upon thy ancient site, 
When all the harbor deeps replied. 
The iron messengers of death. 
That sped from yonder blood red heath. 
Low growing on the island wild. 
Heard booming guns o'er this still tide. 



But now tliy weird, and storm teat shore, 
Reverberates these sounds no more. 
Hushed is the din cf civil war! 
At times sweeps down the storms and 

flaw; 
Here rocks our boat in sweetest sleep, 
And round our prow doth ever sweep, 
The little wavelet's tilting leap, 
Low whispering in their beauty " sleep. " 
Old Princes head, indeed well named! 
For thou hast stood when fame has waned 
And hundreds sank on battle fields. 
Stood thou when cannon. loudly pealed! 
Uadaunted still thy head doth lift, 
AVhen inland mists around thee drift. 
And thunder storms come bursting down 
Around thy ever hallowed ground. 
Old Pettick ! happy happy isle ! 
Where the sportsman doth beguile 
The weary hours of sunnner time 
Here with his gun or fishing line. 
The pastured cattle roaming wild, 
Come down near by thy saline tide, 
And feel as free as ocean air 
To roam the pleasant hillside there. 
O hear — their lowing from the dells! 
Wide echo up the swelling hills ; 
Or in dark days foretelling storm. 
On the hill-side huddling warm, 
They o'er each hill, and nestled lawn. 
Or in the chill and leaden morn. 
At sunset watch them strangely march. 
On the rounded hills so fast, 
Dark cut against the yellow sky, 
As the storm rack sails so coldly by. 

LO ! where Hull's green hillock heaves. 
The Ocean's quiet beauty sweeps. 
And on the little beaches leaves 



Its foot print fast from outer deeps. 
Near, from old Pettick' s crescent shore, 
The channel carves its certain way, 
Is heard the tide's incessant roar, 
By moon lit night and leaden day. 
Hull has heard old Ocean's voice. 
At night, when Boston's thousands slept, 
Nor minded how the sea did beat, 
When hoped the sailor on the deep, 
Ere blew the wily cold north east. 
In Boston bay, his anchor down, 
And past old Hull's sea beaten town, 
How well to laugh and dance on deck. 
And dream that other men are wrecked. 
To fill the pipe, the cheer pass round. 
And hear old Ocean's deepest sound. 

I saw the schooners backward sail ; 
We saw the tired boatman row. 
Who tried to stem the tide and fail. 
Although the wind did scarcely blow. 
Ere those strange hills bore their known 

name. 
And Boston laid a silent lot, 
The Indian hunter seaward came, 
In search of fish, or wildest game, 
Scarce dared upon thy tide to rock. 
Now our people sing and laugh, 
On Hull's old shore, so quaint and wild, 
And beat each year the pleasant path, 
While it has rose a famous pile. 
Ah ! here the same blue billows roll ! 
Ah, sweet the sea blown airs unfold. 
Their soft and balmy wings of old. 
But the loveliet hill doth hold, 
A place of graves, embosomed deep. 
Where all the dearest quiet sleep. 
Wild sounds my friend, they hear no 

more. 
Nor the grand, grand old Ocean's roar. 



KISKST tliou wt'ird. s^o niysiic, bleak ! 
Like a ghost of the dark, s^aci deep '. 
Oki Light houi^e grim, so cold and still. 
With stubborn tirui gigantic will — 
You stand so white, through all thenight 
Holding ever thy beaeon light : — 
How fares it with thee when the king, 
The cold and fearful northern Wind, 
Shakes out his banners round thy brow, 
And the dark bea doth mutter low ? 
How fares it with thee when tlie main 
Feels the breath of the Hurricane, 
And the liigh waves shake out their locks, 
Wliite and cold as the wrathful rojks f 
How fares it with thee, when all alone, 
Thou hearest t!ie dark old Ocean moan, 
When nought but the billows roar. 
Wild vexing the rooks and thy cold shore ? 



Majestic like our days she sails. 
Undaunted, from earth's hill and dale, 
Untroubled, mid the storm and gale ! 
But to that happier tropic shore, 
Where winter storms can blight no more. 



COME I towared the Ocean let us go! 
Ere the night winds loudly blow. 
Ah ah, look back on Boston's Bay ! 
Where crimson sunset shadows play ! 
Fiery red ,as rockets gleam. 
The clouds along the azures stream, 
And lo! the Bark upon her way. 
Reflects the splendors o'er her sails. 
Till all the glory flits and fails. 
Like a ball of fire from other spheres. 
The sun has dimly rolled away. 
Like a vast and splendid tear, 
At the hour of dying day. 
The Ship sails on where waters meet 
The sky, in one unfathomed deep. 
Sail on O heart, in all thy faith ! 
How e'er thou love, or watch, or weep, 
Into thy dark and lonely deep ! 
Sweet silence shall enfold thy sleep. 



I THERE is a city in the East, 
' Where the poets sang of old ; 

Where beauty's robes unfold 
I In the clouds of golden fleece — 

O! the skies are not so bright in Venice. 

As round old Boston's Bay ! 
I She sits asi the pollen in the chalice. 
! Where brighter sunlights play. 

Oiu" New England spreads around her, 
i As petals round the rose, 
I With all its glory at the centre, 
I From whence the sweetness blows. 

I Ah Boston shine on ! O live forever ! 
I Bright city of the West ! 
I Bring knowledge, howsoever red the 
heather 
With blood on Europe's breast. 

Thou laj-est like a king, still and gigantic 

In the sunset's fall. 
Ready to sweep in power, the vast Atlan- 
tic, 

At stern duty's call. 

But yet, it may be for another people, 

To feel thy deepest power. 
To hear a growing nation's warlike bugle, 

Call thee in needful hour. 

The twilight mists, are now around thee 
falling, 
And looms thv miuerets ; 



The dome I thy rich resplendent jewel. 

Thy handj« across thy breaat. 
Sleep on fair city in thy deep dreaming! 

Thy glory shall not waste ! 
Thy hope« are throagh our hearena 
streaming, 

O long may he thy rest ! 
O may no stormy battle wildly calling 

Thee in some far future dawn, 
With battles bitterest wail appalling, 

Awake thy glorious form. 

IN' the sun's declining ray. 

Fort Warren glows again — 

Xot with barracks swept away. 

Nor cannons belching flame. 

Not clouds of smoke from height to height. 

But crimson chariots riding bright. 

Around the fading orb of day. 

You should go at evening hour. 

When old Boston celebrates 

That fair day when -he was free ; 

When night all darkening spreads. 

Watch the rockets over head. 

And bursting wild in glee. 

She lays triumphant in the dusk. 

And o'er her glowing into bloom, 

The meteors pass the sailing moon ; 

And through the fires all blenched in 

light. 
She seem.a enchanted throng the night. 
Well smiling at the rockets flight 
But now 'tis calm — our little boat. 
Has passed wild Aliton's bold point — 
Before us all in beauty lay. 
In one long, and silver reach. 
The golden sand where wild waves play, 
Old Nantasket's silvery beach. 
We could not reach the further shore. 



But through the dusk we plie<l the oar. 
And coming where the surf was high. 
We sailed the crest as sea birds fly. 
And breathing to the dusk we felt. 
How boat and us might noiseless melt 
Into the sea and dark'ning night 
Ere rose another dawn of light- 
Drenched with brine, unlucky time ! 
We hauled the lx>at uprm the sand. 
Away from Ocean's ruthless hand. 
We turned it over on the shore, 
And felt the solid land once more — 
We like the Indian passed away. 
Stretched on the dryer sand did lay. 
Dreaming all the night away. 
With feelings strange and quaintly told. 
Together on the sand we rolled — 
And while old Night told m hia hours, 
Hia mysteries round us did unroll — 
And wrapped in dreama so manifold, 
Along the strangely spangled floor 
We heard the echoes round the shore. 

I COULD not sleep for the wonder of the 
Sea, 
In beauty circling me. 
I heard the ceaseleaa tramping of the surf 

The music of the deep. 
And like vast phantoms nodding their 
white plumes. 
Walk the sands in gloom. 
They paced aU night across the golden 
sand. 
Forever toward the land. 
And flung in triumph up and down the 
shore. 
The shells from ocean's floor. 
Weird, impalpable, in the shade* of 
night. 



10 



The mighty ribs repose 
Of hulks long parted with their life and 
light, 

That move when billows move. 
I saw a thousand Phantoms dance 

Along the broad expanse, 
And mute depart in cloud again 

From off the mystic main ; 
And murmurs from the open lips 

That came from prows of ships, 
And homes all desolate on the, shore. 

Where friends return no more. 

STILL is the night, but stiller rests, 
The vast, eternal, sad old deep, 
"Where sways the billows soft in sleep. 
Beyond the wide and dreary waste. 
And now the moon, the clear cut moon, 
Looks from her curtain far away. 
Whose eyes along the waters play. 
And melts the darkness into bloom. 
Like a maiden dancing to the night. 
The glamor of her rays swept down, 
Amid the crystal waters blown, 
A long resplendent line of light. 
So still — the world from star to star ! 
So still ! I feel that I am king 
Of all the wide domain, each wing- 
Enfolded by the gates afar. 
How beautiful ! tliis bright clear moon ! 
Forevermore looks down on me, 
Mystic o'er my land and sea, 
As though she were my love alone. 
Ah Luna Luna ! my dearest Luna ! 
Hyperion was thy mother. 
And now I am thy lover, 
Looking unto thee forever. 
Thy sweet face is beaming downward 
Through the shadows soft, 



Across the star-liglit flitting earthward, 
Mid clouds that sail aloft. 

THE Day with streamers bright at morn 
Hath sailed again the golden horn ; 
She doubled all her splendid capes, 
And viewed herself in silver lakes — 
Our little boat is on the bay. 
And o'er our wing the sunbeams play. 

Nantasket's silver sands, 

Sleep calmly in the morning mist. 

Sweep round the pleasant lands. 

Reflecting all the golden East. 

The tides move, with unwearied feet, 

A place where land and ocean meet — 

Here entranced the billows sleep. 

And the blue waves moan from the deep. 

Beautiful Nantasket! in thy long and 

peaceful rest. 
Thou hearest not the tramping o'er thy 

shores 
Of purple-sandaled waves along thy floors; 
Nor the moving of the maiden's foot, 
Who presses soft thy golden sands in 

youth. 
Thou hearest no echo when the storm 

clouds sweep, 
Roaming from the still shadows of the 

deep. 
Li the moving of myriad foot steps, 
Thou heedest not the anxious, quickened 

pace. 
Nor the crimson burning of the flushed 

face; 
Nor worry of the spirit, and the heart. 
Thou f eelest not when lovers meet to part. 

This is the place ! where well she wrote 



11 



thy name, 

Who loved her, o'er the golden floor of 
sand, 

And gave to thee deceivingly her hand — 

But the next tide took her name forever- 
more, 

And the dark waves moved cold along the 
sand, 

With mutterings from the deep o'er the 
dead shore. 



THE maidens pace in morning light, 

Along Xantasket's gold delight, 

And while no rover walking by, 

To watch the dimpled smile and eye. 

Into the watery blue they dip. 

Or round the silver sand they slip — 

Then caught upon the finest crest. 

The salt sea splashes head and breast — 

Fair in the crystal sapphire wave. 

The beauties of the dawning lave. 

Before the evening shadows fall, 
How high the sound from shore and hall, 
And in the light of lovely eyes, 
The smile of golden pleasure flies. 
Then music from the laughing shore, 
The echo from pavilion door. 
The cheer, and hoot, from tent to tent. 
And chowder served from rustic bench. 
Then gayly flaunting on the sand. 
The beau who plays Avith all the band, 
And arm in arm with girls in blue, 
While ribbons from their tresses flew. 
Juloud, on cloud, the streamers fly, 
From booth and tent, they meet the sky ; 
And ere the night shall pause and die 
Behold the magic rockets fly. 



AWAY o'er the Ocean, out on the bay, 
We are laying our course southward. 
And Minot's is looming o'er our bright 

way. 
Old Boston up to the northward. 

You should hear all night the surges. 

Amid the hiss and roar. 
In their low and dreary dirges, 

Beat the southern shore. 

There is a music spirit-lifting, 

Around old Minot's Light, 
And ever the wild shifting, 

Of the winds of night. 

There is a cadence ever rocking 

The sailor to his sleep. 
With voices of foreboding. 

The sea's incessant beat. 

There is a music of the billows. 

Soft, and sweet, and sad. 
Like the sighing of the willows. 

Where some hero fought and bled. 

It is here around old Minot, 

When the north wind blows. 
When by compass steers the pilot, 

Through winter sleet and snows. 



see the angry rocks rejecting 
The white and curdled foam ! 
j And the whitened crests uplifting, 
I Around the light alone ! 

Here, there is no faint intruder. 
Mid the silence and the gloom. 

But the cold, and dread, and shudder, 
Of Ocean's beat and boom. 



12 



AMBROSIAL in the parting light, 
Of the deep purple even, 
Are the rays last gleaming bright ; 
But sweetest then these dark rocks 
Reflect it with a weird delight. 
The sweet song of the inland bird, 
Chanting at the soft hour of day, 
Never by thy wet rocks is heard — 
Naught but the white unwearied gull, 
Takes up here his unseen abode, 
In his uninterrupted whirl. 
Thou shalt see these reddened rocks, 
In the sweetened hour of morn, 
Surrounded by their white flocks 
Of bubbles of the beaten spray, 
Touched by the lips of rosy Dawn. 
Thou shouldst see the night enshadow 

them, 
And hear their varied voices then. 
When on the ambrosial shore. 
The musk rose sleeps upon her stem ; 
Or when the sad hollihock droops ; 
Or the milky -way o'er all throws 
Its mellow light in deep repose. 
Up the bright hill the lily blooms. 
And the still shadows sleep in peace, 
And the violet's perfume roams 
Around myriad sleeping homes. 
Dark rocks ! thy rest at twilight hour. 
Comes with more triumphant spell. 
With deep and more enchanting power. 

COHASSET by the water sleeps. 
Steeple, hill, and humble cot. 
By the Ocean well embraced, 
With a stern, though pleasant face. 
The sabbath bells are pealing deep, 
Sounding o'er the waters sweet, 
Reverberated from on high, 



Then o'er old Ocean waste and die. 
Like the sainted country sang of old, 
Where the scrolls of God were first un- 
rolled, 
A name Cohasset sacred holds ; 
The fair Jerusalem's long road. 
From wood to wood, and belt of pines, 
It round the opening country winds 
In many a loved, and graceful curve. 
There a spread or grateful shade. 
Sweet pictures that the sunlight made — 
Here tufts of grass and level sand, 
Dear places where the winds have fanned. 
Long vistas of the oak and pine, 
Against the ocean's level line. 
And then such clouds that lovelj^ lift, 
Such glancing light through forests slipt. 
Like smiles that fly from lovers lip. 
Every where the perfume blows, 
From yonder upland pleasant groves, 
Caressing all the distant smile, 
That gleams from ocean mile b}^ mile. 
listen to the murmur of the shore. 
Where the long swells ceaseless pour! 
Or when the bittern loudly shrieks. 
Or whispers to the distant deeps. 
This is a place to take thy rest ; 
To lull the pains in every breast, 
Where the sea winds gently keep 
Their rhymes that rock the heart to sleep. 

HALF hidden they softly pass 
Along the lopped and pleasant grass, 
Two lovers gliding hand in hand ; 
They feel the spell of Ocean now, 
Around their finer feelings flow ; 
They feel the dream a magic wand, 
A joy to make the heart expand. 
No sweeter place for "yes I will, " 



13 



To waft from parted lips of love, 

Heard by the seas, and pines alove. 

Awake my harp ! awake and sweep 

Thy strings from sounds of yonder deep ! 

And let me breathe old Ocean's sigh, 

From thought to thought until I die ! 

Such paths as these will lead to lands. 

Where forever more are hands. 

Wide open mid the shining bands. 

Like stars that drop along the night, 

Gleam sweet on shore the evening lights ; 

As when you pass some spanning bridge. 

And watch old Orion burning bright, 

And rise, and ever wildly sink 

Below the darkened ocean brink. 

And sweeping now the northern vault, 

The dipper and the pilot star, 

Whirls round the cold and dreary North, 

A molten fire by icy bar. 

Along the ocean verge they stream, 

A long resplendent beam ; 

As when in lands of golden dream, 

Bright spears of silver gleam. 



AWAKE ! Arise! from yonder deep, 
Like monsters from some under world, 
The Scituate cliffs rise up from sleep. 
By waves of crystal and of pearl. 
Blow low the fog, or high the wind, 
The sailor dreads their spines at night. 
And outward from the land he keeps, 
Till looms old Boston's whirling light. 
Walk at morn and see the shore. 
Raked, and raked, from dawn to night. 
By the toilers o'er and o'er, 
For moss they dry along its floor ; 
And huddled by the ocean lees. 
Safe from the beating seas. 



The homes where dwell the gatherers 

long, 
Who constant hear the breaker's song. 
We passed the light ; we passed the cliffs : 
Before us wide in beauty lay 
Quaint Marshfield's hills and pleasant 

lins. 
And to the Dawn, on fairy wings. 
Along the seas ^olus sings. 

O fair South Shore ! of this bright world. 

There is no place so dear to me ! 

For now my loves are linked with thee 

Dear land, that overlooks the sea ! 

Twas here the best of Earth I found, 

That ever swayed my soul and heart ! 

And sacred every hill and mound. 

A little inland much of youth 

Was ever blest and dear to me. 

Where winds the lane, and spreads the 

tree. 
In those dear places where I wore 
The rose-bud crowns of early love — 
In that old home where I was born, 
Those dearest friends are now no more. 
()ther forms now till the lands. 
My Father sleeps with folded hands ! 
The stars look down upon his grave. 
From out the hearing of the wave ; 
The blue bird sings above his breast. 
Sweet in the places of his rest. 
But the dark blue waves, sigh on — 
And murmur, murmur, ever more — 
Along my hallowed old South Shore. 

AWAKE ! Awake ! Yonder Brant Rock 

lies — 
where those deep and splendid eyes ? 
That graced the Congress hall; — 
That voice did shake the iron wall ; 



14 



Those eyes that glanced about the lands, 
And looked through men, and gave the 

hands. 
And helped to form the glorious hours, 
That stand triumphant in their powers. 
Our noble Webster is no more ! 
The light that flashed from deepest eyes 
Is fled. Here well the ocean roars. 
And all the miles of sea kissed shore, 
Repeat his name forever more. 
O go thou when the winds are low. 
And the seas are calm below, 
And see the light of influence glance 
O'er roaming seas and pleasant lands, 
And beckoning of the hundred liands 
Of glories that he left with us. 
They still are wielding magic wands ! 
Here, were lost Webster's solitudes, 
Where long he loved to calmly roam, 
And find in them beatitudes. 
To shed so well their golden bloom. 
How long he watched the plover fly. 
With what deep, and speaking eyes, 
Beheld the fading of the day ; 
And the surf around the beach 
Speak loud, or round old Brant Kock play. 
O what eye more constant watched, 
The wild duck in her ceaseless flight, 
To fret the distant clouds of light. 
Or break the silence of the night. 
With what a soul, up through the stars, 
Beheld he visions till the dawn ! 
Or when the night in shadow moves. 
He felt its holy, blest repose. 
With what a heart ! he loved the deep, 
That ever woke him from his sleep. 
And heard the eloquent voiced shore. 
The music of old Ocean's roar ! — 
The nations heard these chords he caught. 



Reverberate from hall to hall. 

That roused the spirits vast that wrought. 

In deepest feeling round the world. 

RED Brant Rock spread into the sea, 
And like a ruby, crimson glowed. 
From western skies, reflecting gold, 
While danced the fleecy spray in glee. 
The girls, in mantles brown and blue. 
From outmost verge of rocks they fished, 
For perch that flounderd to the sands, 
While round them wild the sea birds flew. 
There dashed with spray the yellow hat, 
While one was blown far out to sea. 
Picked up by some lone sailor sad, 
Whose heart was made a little glad. 
To find so dear a charm from shore. 
To wake the dreams of happy scenes, 
Bright eyes, and golden curls once more. 
The tents were full ; the girls were gay, 
As on the shore, they played Croquet ; 
But hearts were fuller, eyes more bright 
Than beauties of the fading light. 
The yachts were on the pleasant sea, 
The bands were playing wild and loud ; 
Sweet the sound of life so free, 
That touched the silver shore in glee. 

SAILING by each pleasant spot, 
Long and earnest did wo watch, 
For old Plymouth's famous hill, 
Where now along the shore so still 
New England's happy lands are tilled. 
You hear no more the warwhoop shrill, 

From out the forest call, 
But now the grinding of the mill, 

No scout along the wall. 
other lyres have sung so well, 

These stories all can tell. 



15 



Go see the monuments high pile, 

Near by the place it graces well. 
Old Duxbmy's shore not far away 

Receives the daily tides, 
Where the Indians had their day, 
Miles Standish shook his sides. 
We go for many a mile below, 
And spy o'er yonder sandy hill, 
The molten furnace ruddy glow. 
Old Sandwich' chimnies loom, 
There belching fire and lurid smoke, 
A Vesuvious of the Southern coast ! 

come and see the furnace hot, 
The little seas of fluid glass. 

Move up and down in wavelets fast. 
Incandescent, deep and wild. 
The seething furnace roars. 
And round the sides, and to the doors. 
Such heat evolves within the Sun, 
And like the fires ere Earth began. 
That chaos ere first cycles ran. 
Whirled from the boisterous fount, 
The workmen first strike out 
A little globe of fiery glass. 
Like a planet thrown to outer paths; 
And look! ere eyes are half aware, 
A goblet beautiful is there. 
How magical old Vulcan works! 
Well roars the fires around the world, 
And wide the seething Suns are hurled. 

AND now a golden haze before me lies. 
Returning smiles to tearful eyes ; 
A haze so rich, so fair so deep, 

1 can but gaze ! I cannot sleep ! 
Old Barnstable, the sight of thee, 

Almost is more than I can brook ! 
Now floats my happy visioned youth : 
O golden mist, quick come to me ! 



Barnstable ! Barnstable, to thee ! 

The early places of my youth, 

Thou art the glory, and tho truth 
Here abiding ever sweet with me ! 
Old Barnstable ! the Winds shout loud 
for thee. 

Thy memory is ever fresh and green ; 

My youthful hopes, my joys have been 
With thee, Dear old Home down by the 
Sea! 

I have loved in early hours. 
Thy pleasant winding street, and lane, 
Thy hills that overlook the main, 

Where I have found Life's sweetest 
flowers. 

This is the spot ; the rolling hill. 
Near by the wavy silver beal, 
Where the Ocean murmurs gently steal, 

Dear places where I roamed at will! 

I have loved thy gentle winds ! 
Thy rocks and meadow creeks ; 

Thy marshes where the long grass 
weeps ; 
These were loves though little things. 

1 watched the distant line of blue. 
From the dear and rolling hill. 
As it slept becalmed and still, 

And white sails as they wondrous flew. 

O'er those fair and morning seas, 
As I did see thee in my dreams, 
A bright and distant Venice seemed, 

Wide floating round the air and trees. 

Although I could not feel all then. 
Thou w^ert the glory of my hours ; 
And though now doth gloomier lower 

Life's shades, those dreams were not in 
vain. 



16 



I travelled to the purple hill, 
Where stood the ancient jail, 
I loved the little lane, and dale, 

And ever watched the old wind mill. 

I stood upon the waste of graves. 
That overlooked the darkening sea ; 
They were a constant wonder unto me. 

Enfolded near the murmuring waves. 

Still stands the cannon in the park, 
And the church upon the hill, 
The same old schoolhouse window sill, 

Where first I learned my heart. 

We drew the maps upon the board. 
And laughed and played, and ever sang, 
Until so loud the school bell rang. 

And hushed each laugh, or wrangling 
word. 

That day, I oft remember well — 
That golden headed girl who sat 
Near me in school, with lovely lip. 

To whom I longed my heart to tell. 

And then at recess round the room ! 
We wildest bedlam made : 
these memories cannot fade ! 

However dark my years may loom. 

And then that bell, that gentle bell! 

That tolled each pleasant sabbath 
morn. 

The glory that was sweetly born. 
Without a tear, these things I cannot tell. 
Some have worn the bridal wreaths, 

some dear ones are dead and gone ! 

Some have ceased their happy song; 
Some are wrecked by coral reefs. 

When a boy, I laid in windy nights. 
Heard echoes loud from star to star, 



Old Ocean rage upon the bar, 
While wildly flashed old Beach Point 

light; 
When up whirled the drifting snow, 
I heard the sweep of angry seas, 
Until the cold and morning breeze, 
Beyond the harbor's icy flow. 

And from the window ever more, 
I watched the distant ice bound wreck. 
On the cruel bar of Sandy Neck, 

That beat by night against the shore. 

And then in hours of peril dark. 

The sailors marched the harbor flow, 
However wild the winds did blow. 

To reach the crew of that wrecked bark. 

school-room, church, pleasant shore ! 
Fair hours, and home of my delight ! 

friends ! with lovely eyes of light, 

1 see your faces now no more ! 
Ah what to me is all my gain, 

My comrades of my early days, 
Who sleep to night below the waves, 
That I sailed not the dark blue main ? 

IN THE earliest hours of dawning, 
Up loomed old Yarmouth Port : 

We sailed till the purple twilight's wan- 
ing. 
Toward Brewster from the North. 

The waves were wild and loud complain- 
ing. 

Round Sandy Neck's low bar, 
Dashed with the clearness of the morning. 

Reflecting wild the glimmering star. 

We met a schooner sailing downward. 
Toward Truro's lowly sand. 



17 



As the clouds were streaming upward, 
From the distant barren land. 

We heard the singing of the sailors, 

Along the rocking deck, 
As they were at their morning labors 

Amid the salt and wet. 

And the songs were strangely wafted, 

Far, and far away, 
From the rigging double masted. 

Up and down the bay. 

cheerful are the reckless sailors ! 

No other weary care they know, 
Flitting through the ropes and cordage, 

Clustered round the bow. 

Near us now the schooner swiftly sailing, 

Throws the spray above. 
With all her bellied canvass filling 

With the winds of dawn. 

The rays of the early sun resplendent. 

Gilds the blackened prow, 
Making all the ocean radiant. 

With crimson light below. 

Her anchors rusty red are gleaming. 
With jewels salt and fresh. 

Tossed by the billows heaving, 
From wet and silver crest. 

Then the wide and splendid Ocean, 

Sweeping from afar ! 
In one long and sleepy motion, 

Beneath the morning star ! 

And here our little boat is floating. 

Across the vessel's wake. 
And o'er the crests uplifting ! 

Our sail a small snow flake. 



Watch the whitened ceaseless dashing. 
Around the schooner's bow. 

Like a million crystals flashing. 

As up and down the waves they go. 

Now shines the dark green shadows, 

On the olden vessels hulk. 
Where the spray forever winnows, 

When wild the winds exult. 

Grey knots of storm beat cordage. 
And puUies hanging down. 

The eye is never tired beholding 
The skipper clothed in brown. 

How magically careens she over. 

Pressing all the seas, 
A glorious old ocean rover. 

The beauty of the breeze. 

Every line is curved so full and graceful. 

And full each setting sail : 
Beautiful the white winged "tops'l" 

A mystic cloud so pale. 

Like a phantom swift descending. 
From all the clouds of night. 

She sails through the morn's ascending 
Vapors of the light. 

There the crimson garments of the sailors, 

Drying by the boom. 
Gleam radiant through the shadows, 

Reflecting morning's bloom. 

The sails are deeply rosy tinted, 

From yonder rising ball, 
Like a maiden's loosened mantle. 

In morning's lighted hall. 

The sailors ! some are ever lounging, 
O'er the bulwarks grey. 



18 



In red and blue soft blushing, 
Through all the livelong day. 

Hark ! upward from the lighted cabin, 

Sounds low the violin, 
Or merry echoes from rude dancing. 

While wild the sailors sing. 

And one with an eager eye and dreamy. 
Is looking toward the shore. 

Where loved ones sit, and growing weary. 
Look toward the open door ; 

And with low voiced supplication, 
Asks "May he come once more, 

To meet us and our little children, 
Though wild the seas may roar. " 

In the low and dreary cabin, 

When the winds are high. 
The sailor sometimes long is dreaming 

Of a love that cannot die. 

And when you are on the shore well 
sleeping, 

think of the angry deep ! 
And the children and the mothers weeping 

Who cannot bear to sleep. 



LAND of low and drifting sands. 
Of berry bush, and fragrant pines. 
Where runs the sea in curving lines, 
And waves are lifting whitened hands ! 
Land where drifts the deepened fog. 
Across the low and sandy downs. 
Where the Atlantic sun at morn. 
Plays round the low green cranberry bog ! 
Were first the dawning's earliest suns. 
Touch New England's hallowed shope, 
Old Cape Cod ! to thee once more. 



The praise of all the nation comes ! 
Thy sailors brave, on every sea, 
Breast the billows, and the surge. 
Where every native tongue is heard. 
The value of a world in thee. 
In foreign port, or distant isles, 
When merchants seek their ablest man, 
They find him from the home of sand, 
To steer their bark o'er ocean miles. 
Come when the world is all at rest, 
Stand lonely on the sandy down, 
Hear the wild winds murmur round ; 
Hear the Atlantic's rythmic beat. 
Come midway on the bending Cape, 
And feel the silence round thee steal ; 
Here thou wilt nobly learn to feel 
The smallness of our worldly fate. 
Come when the Atlantic moans 
Through all the low green pines. 
And the sands are lifted to the winds, 
Mystic under Autumn moons. 
One narrow strip of shifting sands, 
Divides the dingle and the dell 
From bay, and Ocean's sounding knell, 
And boisterous surge from still inlands. 



CAPE Cod's gigantic arm extends, 
With pearl and shell, a bracelet well 
Enjewelled o'er the silvery fell. 
Toward Ocean a defiant hand : 
As Hercules, who lifts at night. 
Through the seas of distant space, 
With his undaunted, onward pace, 
An arm of deep and starry light. 
Age on age the Ocean beats 
The long and outward shore. 
About the sandy dappled floor, 
In vain a challenge doth r.epeat. 



19 



Cape Cod, still stands and heeds it not, 
But ever shifts its golden sands 
From place to place, like phantom hands, 
Ungrasped by seas, no ruin wrought. 
By Massachusetts' pleasant bay, 
Tlie beach-grass waveth too and fro, 
O'er belts of sand doth golden grow, 
Waere all the inland breakers play. 
You see the fronded sea-weed stream ; 
And from the lonely wet lagoon, 
Afar beneath the new horned moon. 
You hear the whistle of the loon. 
A phantom voice that comes like dreams, 
You hear the hooting of the owl, 
A knell for night, and dreary soul, 
A nameless grief amid these scenes. 



AS some great soul stands out apart 

From all the noisy world ; 
So the old Cape retires at dark, 

And dreams to Ocean old. 

The barren waste that stretches to the 
deeps, 
Holds yet a love, a grace ; 
Like some great holy, lonely, heart it 
keeps 
A still secluded place. 

Dear hearts surrounded by Life's wildest 
seas, 
Know yet a gentle sleep ; 
A calm more sweet than evening's dreamy 
breeze, 
To cheer the weary feet. 



Life is not all a place of splendid suns, 

But hath its barren capes. 
Most silent nooks and windblown downs, 

Where oceans loudly sweep. 



WE sailed to Brewster's salty sand. 
And cruised the rolling miles inland. 
The clouds were wrapt in coldest grey, 
Save a whitened line of fading day. 
Dark advanced the shades o'er head. 
But day's last streak seemed one laid 

dead. 
Against it loomed in rolling lines. 
The low dark hills of sober pines. 
And on one height but dreamy still, 
Stood weirdly out one lone wind mill. 
Its horns of brown and back of black. 
Looked like a phantom stalking down. 
To find repose on yonder lawn. 
It gazed far toward the dark'ning deep. 
And for the fading day did weep ; 
And o'er it peeping from a bed of bloom. 
Hung the sickle of the waning moon. 
One leafless tree had straggled down, 
From off the cold and barren hill. 
And in procession round the mill. 
The others gathered dark and still. 
The barren branches loudly wailed, 
As by them swift the cloud rack sailed ; 
And whistling in the tAvilight wind. 
They stood against the sunset pale. 
Hark — how still ! not a word we spoke. 
Until the Ocean's echo woke. 
And all its numbers strangely wrote, 
From^'hill to hill, from grot to grot. 



20 



WE wandered where the rock and dell, 
Looked over all the roaring deep, 
The dark abyss where tempests sweep. 
We wandered till the night was late, 
And one by one the distant stars, 
Grew radiant round their filmy bars. 
We hastened till the hour of one, 
Rang o'er the seas and sandy fells. 
Deep toned and wild from Brewster's 

bells. 
Glowed all the distant hearth fire lights. 
Whose gleam, a picture fair did bring, 
The happy house-hold cheer within. 
The traveller o'er the windy Cape, 
Plodding weary late at night. 
Sees but now and then a light. 
Where'er he stops is welcome spread, 
The loaded humble board for him, 
And hears the rosy maidens sing. 
The fire far up the chimney roars. 
And though the blast without is bleak, 
And the night is dark with cloud and sleet, 
Still smiles are here and ample love, 
To cheer the wanderer from his home — 
The little children gather round, 
And though the hail taps on the pane. 
They tell the legends of the main. 
The golden apples mutter there, 
Across the hearth of open fire. 
So neatly swept with house-hold care; 
But though the father absent now, 
Who dreams all night by helm wheel, 
His shadow through the room doth steal. 
And by the hearth the still wife sits. 
With now and then a dimpled smile, 
Or gazing downward on the tile. 
Old Rover dreams of duck and fox. 
Outstretched nearby the brilliant hearth. 
Heedless of the joy and mirth. 



Puss paws the string that dangles down, 

From the Bible old and Avorn. 

Across the low and flickering wall, 

Suspended there the hunting gun, 

Is with the shot and powder hung; 

And there nearer to the fire. 

The net is drying worn and old. 

In many a winding lacy fold. 

But we are wandering on, 

From hill to hill the star-light sleeps. 

Across the bog to yonder deeps. 

And now 'tis autumn time : 

We hear all night the screeching loon. 

Timed by the stroke of Ocean's boom. 

For days, the Wind from out the east, 

Has blown his fiercest trumpet wild, 

And high o'er all the roaring tide. 

O lay beneath the pines at night ! 

Long after weary storms have ceased. 

And hear old Ocean mourn in grief. 

hear at night on old Cape Cod, 

The mystic echoes round the shore ! 

The glory of old Ocean's roar ! 



WE marked the morning's early light. 
Glance radiant o'er the low dark hills, 
And gild afar the quaint wind-mills. 
The sandy knolls were touched with gold 
Where grew the thistle seared and pale. 
And low brown moss, from dale to dale. 
Here lays the desolate swamp of reeds. 
And lowly moors of Cat Nine Tails, 
That loudly creak when north wind wails; 
And in the cold morass stands dead. 
The sword stalks of brown sweet flags, 
Where the blue Iris droops and fades. 
The bushy fences round the fields. 



21 



And the tall grass clustering brown, 
Huddles in knots along the ground ; 
And from the stark and outer shores, 
The wild duck finds his still retreat, 
Remote from town, or dusty street. 
There the bittern loudly calls, 
Where the wild bird buil(fs her nest. 
And the stilted crane finds rest. 
We passed the desolate windy roads, 
And saw the low b«ilt houses there. 
The grace of age and seasons wear. 
Made picturesque from sun to sun, 
How e'er the shadows grey might fall. 
On mossy roof, or shingled wall. 
The olden chimney tottering down ; 
A window pane stuffed in with kelp. 
Where Cape Cod's wrath of storm hath 

dealt. 
Above the gable, long and high 
Did ride the old and quaint well sweep, 
To draw the cheer from spring so deep. 
And then the orchard's straggling trees, 
Knotty and gnarled, all barked and bare, 
Scarce hiding half the summer's glare. 
Somehow, they in the sands could grow. 
Well nurtured by the rains of God, 
That smile through love around Cape Cod. 
The well trod path lead upward to the 

door, 
And the happiest group was there, 
A mother and the children dear, 
A constellation sleeping fair, 
In peace where dwells the evening star ; 
So clustered on the lonely Cape, 
This happy band in peaceful place, 
The glory of the angel face — 
The star of love forever more. 
The filial ties of child and home. 
Affection's sweetest glow and bloom ; 



The mother with a radiant face. 
And children smiling back again, 
To keep Love's never dying flame. 
The flowers bloomed sweetly there, 
But sweeter in the mother's heart, 
Love's flower, whose petals cannot fall 
apart. 



JUST above the land of Brewster, 
Lays level moors and fields. 
There, like towers of dreamy cities, 
We saw the wind-mill's whirling wheels. 

They pump all night the salty ocean, 
Flank on flank, and row by row, 
And constant creaking in their motion. 
Filling shallow tanks below, 

They stand with unwearied patience — 
And now the wind is lulled again : 
They are speechless in the silence. 
And then no more complain. 

At times the music of their whirling, 
Mocks the wild duck's mournful note, 
On the ear in twilight falling, 
As gloomy spectral voices float. 

Day by day the salt is filtered, 
Under suns that gild the sands. 
And gleams in radiant crystals, 
Along the walks and stands. 

I walked as one amid still ruins ancient, 
Near by the salt works' low dark roofs. 
In long, weird vistas rising, 
Like lines of voiceless tents and booths. 

They lay like vast and phantom places, 
Deserted, cold, and still, 



22 



In a distant mystic region, 
Sleeping by low forgotten hills. 

Hither from the scattering wood-lands, 
Fly unmolested flocks of crows; 
With AVild and solemn cawing, 
Through the leaden dawn they go. 

Hither in the dark and silence, 
Falls the ever gentle rain. 
And through each pensive twilight, 
Rolls the music of the main. 



ON Truro's sands the day declines, 
No home for rose or lily flowers, 
Yet rolls the silent flitting hours. 
We came to nooks of even floors. 
Where sleeps the deep, and pliant sand, 
When the Ocean airs were fine and bland. 
Here were prints of thin webbed feet, 
Where wild birds gathered side by side. 
Out-washed by every evening tide. 
In air we heard the wild duck's call, 
A silvery voice through cloudlets fall. 
And plovers cry from place to place. 
The music of a happy race. 
Beyond, the long grass ever swayed, 
Where stilted birds their home had made, 
Where winding tracks of lagoon laid. 
Now and then, from reed to reed, 
A white winged darter flitted by, — 
How well fair bird that swift you fly ! 
You roam all day the silent stream, 
Where the grasses dip and lean. 
And the pearl shells radiant gleam. 
You roam by moor, and mossy fell, 
And dream above the silver sea — 
Hail fair bird, I would speak with thee ! 



You roam where breakers silent dip. 
Where the loon cries long in joy ; 
No strifes of weary days annoy. 
O tell me where sweet mornings rise ! 
Where the day star finds its fields of liglit ! 
Whence comes the sweetness of the night ? 
O tell me where all feelings dwell. 
That rise from Nature's deepest place I 
The smiles that pass along her face. 
In freedom thou wilt constant dwell. 
And I — to roam these sands below. 
And plod with life where'er I go. 
Thou art nearer Nature's perfect home ! 
Upward toward the clouds away, 
You seek the golden fount of day ; 
Or dip at evening by each pleasant place. 
Unfolding from the deeps to me. 
Majestic whispers of the sea. 



WE landed where the lagoons there. 

Laid like mirrors on the beach. 

And shallow o'er the silver reach. 

At the bottom gleamed the shell, 

In sweet repose had found a home, 

No longer on these tides to roam. 

Here a dipper dipt his fill. 

And lived, though outward winds might 

blow. 
And watched the lagoons burnished glow. 
He saw himself in sunny light, 
Reflected from the grass and brake, 
A king of all the little lake. 
But we had marred his pleasure now, 
With hoot and jeer the silence broke, 
And all the seaside echoes woke. 
We gazed and saw the beach was white, 
With the sea-bird's hast'ning flight. 



23 



The sands were thick from place to place, 
With fluttering peeps, and far did float 
The wild duck like a moving boat. 



ERE stars arose from Ocean's brink. 
We gathered from the distant shore, 
The drift wood on the sandy floor, 
And from the driest built a fire. 
As when, since many ayeargoneby, 
The savage saw the spark from tinder 

%• 
We got the kettle from the boat ! 
Between three sticks leaned like a tent, 
We hung it in the heat's ascent. 
We cooked our chowder in the pot. 
And ate from shells beneath the moon, 
A clam shell for a silver spoon. 
Sweet-fair around us slept the sea. 
Where sang so loud the noisy loon. 
About the low and damp lagoon. 
We walked at moonlight far away, 
In the deep silence of the night. 
And heard the wild goose' solemn flight. 
We gazed along the gentle deep. 
And felt the evening sweet decline, 
From all the Ocean's moonlit line. 
At once, from out a low green break, 
Rayed out the glimmer of a hght, 
And music came up through the night. 
A tent was there with hunters old. 
Around the merry, merry fire, 
And calm with dreamy eyes they sat. 
Where gleamed the blaze on brilliant 

mat. 
With eyes to eyes, in speaking smile, 
While rolled the smoke from social pipe. 
Each told a tale by flickering light. 



The tent was hung inside with game, 
Of duck and coot ,and long necked loon, 
And wizard like it strangely loomed. 
Here laid the skin of slyest fox. 
And that of deer so fine and rare, 
Driven from old Plymouth woods afar. 
'Tis seldom now they silent roam, 
Along the Cape from wood to wood, 
Or foxes cross the sandy road. 
The supper in the tent was done. 
And the scene was like, that which one 

reads. 
In the Arabian Night's strange leaves. 
The hunter dogs had found a place, 
Near by the blazing brilliant fire, 
Beat out by all the weary race. 
From many a hunting bag hung down. 
The sprawling feet of coot and teal, 
That now no more through lagoons steal ; 
And then upon the tent was cast, 
Weird shadows grim through all the night 
Of those about the red fire light,. 



LO ! where the gentle morning breaks, 
Along the broad and sparkling sea, 
Old Provincetown awakes in glee. 
We sail unto her pleasant sand. 
What thought ray song doth now demand ! 
To sing the glory of thy land ! 
The sickle inw^ard bends. 
Where the dawning rays descend. 
Where our voyage hath found an end. 
Here the wharves are brown and old. 
O what strange stories could they tell. 
Rehearsing Ocean's legends well. 

The central hill still stands. 

And like a Giant waves its hands , 



24 



To the Atlantic from these sands. 

Bat the storm beat walls are now no more 

Of the hall on High Pole hill, 

Where the red flames burst in iron will. 



Like Prometheus, wild and high, 
The old place ever silent scorns 
Atlantic's loud and ceaseless storms. 
Old Highland Light with steady eye, 
Watches evermore the boisterous deep, 
That never resteth here in sleep. 
This is a world-wide hallowed place. 
Where the dark seas find their bound, 
On Xew England's happy ground. 



Before us looms Atlantic's blue, 
Unfathomed, deep, and wide, 
The home of storm and tide ; 
And by my feet, doth ever slet-p. 
New England's long and pleasant Bay — 
: Sleeps well, though I— shall waste away. 

Whese the last, deep, sands of gold. 
Touch the Eternal sounding wells : 
'Tis fit to say " Fare thee Well! " 
Words ! useless words ! though uttered 

from the heart ! 
Still — glory to the deepening silence falls, 
And though Farewell, God walks these 
1 golden halls. 




4"^ 



.mtuuH*t< 




t-iis V'^r'v Pi^ss irriiS2.ii. iiis i^s*, rr^'Jis* s'tc" its 

he h.ad tesn msjrriei i'^-i a year. I ieii^ate tiiis 
i;cein to ]bim, iivilel int: a n-jLmier :f siicrt lays. 



THE AFTHOE. 




/^ H INA ! when thou hoverest near, 
"^^ And thy dear spirit looks on mine, 
No earthly love, or dream, like thee ! 
Star in the golden track of Time. 




TO TJSr^, 



DIED JUNE 5th, 1880. 



)Y familiar Auburn, 
And that shore — she sleeps. 
And the lone tower looks down, 
O'er that gentle flowing water. 
Whose silver crescent bathes in morn. 

I meet her never now ; 

And everywhere at dawn, 

When up the lonesome path I walk, 

The glow she drew from yonder sun, 

Is gloomy ever, ten times down. 

Here is her silent room ! 
The lone fly hums across the wall. 
Close the blind and shut the door. 
what foot-beats in the hall ! 
But Ina's. — I shall hear no more. 



There floats upon her little fan 
The wind that shakes its silken down. 
There looks the window to the lawn 
Where golden curtains rise and fall 
The north star gilds the empty wall. 

Her dear white glove there lies, 
Where last she laid it soft — 
No lips to speak ! No look from eyes ! 
But to the night these deep tears roll. 
And vaguely beats my heart and dies. 

Wild the clock ticks on the stars, 
And strikes the hour when we were wed 
But o'er the icy sunset bars, 
Across the lonely waste I look 
To aisles of all the western stars. 



LIKE the dull, low, murmurs of the night 
The whisperings of my mourning soul. 
Wake with a weird, restless, flight. 

I scarcely feel that I am here, 

Or even that I am wholly I, 

So drenched my weary lids in tears. 

This, even this ! — my blank brain 
Wastes like a desolated sun, 
Turning evermore in flame. 

Fair ! fair! thou gold horned moon, 
Looketh into my dark chamber now, 
As another ray to my dark gloom. 

Ina ! sweet Ina ! art thou. 
Ever in the dim shadows there ? 
Where the moon beams come and go. 



NIGHT of my long repose ! 

I like Cas'opa, o'er the dreary waste 

When loud the wailing north wind blows. 

I sit by the forked and friendless fire, 
Hearing the winds low moan all night, 
Till they leave me at morn and expire. 

I watch the still, cold, stars one by one, 
Their golden trains sweep the infinite deep 
But she who loved them with me is gone. 

Winds are hurled to the twink'ling stars, 

Mid the doom of my despair 

That burns like the planet of Mars. 

Ah Saturns two rings ! — the one she 

wore 
In the dawn of her beautiful youth ! 
Through the long, dear days of yore. 



Roll, golden planets, roll ! 

Ye are mine as I gaze through the sable 

of night ; 
There she has gained her ideal and goal. 

Could I know sweet Ina was up with the 

stars, 
Through years I would wish to be there, 
A king by the side of the red planet Mars. 

When Ina was here in the arbor below, 
I knew her fond and languishing glanL'e, 
But there, Ina a queen I shall know. 

But in the dream that has past, 
I have felt the touch of her hand, 
Seen the wheels of herchariot roll fast. 

And o'er the seas of the milky way, 

I have traced my queen through the 

night. 
Like the sun that rides through the day. 

In my Heaven of Hope she doth rove. 
But I grope awhile in her bower below, 
And watch her with the stars above. 



WIND that sleeps o'er Ina's grave, 

On the little lonely hill, 
Beyond the murmuring of the wave. 

That gleams from yonder dell ! 

I love thee in thy wrath and power, 
And while ye sweep the roaring sea, 

I learn to love thee more and more, 
And learn to mourn with thee. 

Can my dark grief all broken be, 
And I — my harsh despair, 

More solace find by summer's sea. 
Than in the wildest air 1 



Moan on, wild ^Eolus mourn ! 

Thy song across the plain — 
I mourn the day that I was born, 

And thou wilt fan the flame, 

That burns within my bosom down, 
And burns to cinders o'er, 

My grief each new re wakening morn, 
For her who comes no more. 



I MEET her not in summer time, 
When the days are long and sweet. 

Or watch no more the eglantine. 
In tangle grow around our feet. 

I meet her not, in balmy night. 
When the evening clouds enwrap 

In the rapture of their flight, 
About the distant starry track. 

I meet her not, when flowers have found 
Their time for sweetest gorgeous bloom. 

When my blush rose wakes from the 
ground, 
And silver gleams about the moon. 

I miss her when I wake at morn, 
And all the house is cold and still. 

I miss her in my lonely hall, 

Sweet guardian of my heart, and will. 

I miss her at the daylight's gentle close. 
When lone I sit within the hall. 

When the night dews weep upon the rose, 
And all the pensive shadows fall. 

WHEN silver night mists falter down. 
And flowers have shut themselves to 
rest. 



I find, dear Spirit, thou art flown, 
Thou leanest not upon my breast. 

I swing the gate— I hear the latch — 
I watch the moon so long and late, 

Aud thinking where thou dearest art, 
I sit alone, and watch, and wait. 

And when the gloaming twilight breathes, 
A low, and deep enduring sigh. 

Thy song into my dreams I weave, 
Nor scarce dare ask if this is I, 

For fearing I should noiseless turn. 
And see thee. Sweet, lone by the gate, 

There stand, and all thy blushes burn, 
In all thy finer heart and state — 

I droop, as low my roses droop. 
And like these dews of night, I weep ; 

I hear her voice as once in youth : 
But again I fall to troubled sleep, 

WHY do we love our happy dead 1 
Half feel for friends who with us dwell ! 

Our affections to far angels wed. 
When for our dearest lost we grieve ? 

why gain say Death's dark hour ? 

They are more worthy of our love, 
For Death has made them to us more, 

In the happier homes above. 

Ah yet I grieve, for thou art gone ! 

Sweet minded ! Death was sweet to thee. 
It only breathed upon thy form. 

And gently closed thine eyes from me. 

Those lids did waste, as lilies close. 

When day has filled its golden round, 
Or as the evening folds the rose, 



Death touched those dear, cold, marble 
brows. 

And lo ! when dawn forever more, 
Awakes in long enduring bloom, 

Behold our love's reopening flower 
Where falls no shade of twilight gloom. 



NOT we should love the dead the more. 
In thinking they are blest in rest. 

But love the living on this shore, 

That when they die they will be blest. 

The holy life beyond the grave, 

Is dearer for this living here so well. 

For they on high across the wave. 
Lookback a constant sweet farewell. 

Ina ! are thy days so sweet 1 
Since thou art ever gone from mg ! 

Thou lookest on my constant grief, 
I mourning long to be with thee: 

Thine were the years of love on earth. 
That grew to fruitful blooming flowers ; 

Thine are these eyes, that weep for thee. 
And thou the glory of mine hours. 

Thine were full hopes, thou cherished 
here, 

And made sweet sacrifice for me; 
Can I yet please thee well, or cheer. 

And still be all in all to thee ? 

And thou wafting gently down. 
Behold me — thou grieving to my tears, 

Sit by me in the approaching gloom, 
And touch the darkened borberd years. 

So thou, passing lightly to that shore, 
And there hast flown awhile so far, 



We love each other more and more, 
Thy Soul my constant hope and star. 



DEEP is the heart that we so love. 

Our absent and the dead ; 
No fairer thought than this hath earth 

To all the inmost feelings wed. 

The smiles that light the dying eyes. 

Are sweeter than they seem ! 
There comes no death — what snaps the 

ties. 
Is waking from the earthly dream ! 

The faith in deep immortal Love, 
Wells up from depths divine, 

And most within my heart it moves. 
In knowmg friends are mine. 

Though iron arms of Death divide 

Me and their daily smiles. 
My hand from weary hands that plied 

To toil through trackless miles. 

Earth is, and was, a place for tears. 

Of work from sun to sun, 
But through the burden of my years, 

I trace one Smile of Love. 

Hearts that roam these rocky leagues, 

See one sweet light above. 
And that the light, and constant smile 

Of Him whose name is Love. 



COME Death — dark mother of sweet 
Love, 

For my love to Ina dead, 
Is deep and sweet, and vaster now 

Than on the glorious day we wed ; 



For somehow, in my course of years, 
I find her grown a strength divine, 

A life of glory past all tears, 
I feeling deeper she is mine. 

Grown to a long enduring Soul, 

And blooming to the perfect flower. 

The Poet dreams of oft below, 
The sun of each full gilded hour. 

And now I find her in my dreams, 
A holy sweetness through my nights 

See waverings of the nameless scenes, 
The flickering of celestial lights : 

And now they dance about my bed. 
And glimmer on the vacant wall. 

Or sphere a glory round my head. 
And gleam across my silent hall ; 

And now they cease, and all is calm. 
But they elude my grasp or choice ! 

Yet through the silence of the hour, 
I hear her dear and glorious voice. 



L()VE and Death, how mystic joined ! 
That Death should bring me sweeter 

love, 
That in the life of those long gone, 
I still find a wondrous life above. 

And thanking Him who made our souls 
To hunger after ceaseless love, 

1 here implore the rolling worlds. 
To meet dear spirits if they rove. 

In this I find a solace deep'ning down. 
Through silent wells of heart and hopes 

That fall like gleams of silver thrown 
In gloomy vaults o'er darkest roofs ; 



That, when I roam this changeful sphere, 
A small voice whispers soft to me, 

„ Sometimes the happy wander here, 
Across the vale and speak with thee. " 

And in thy sorrow lone and deep. 
Something often wakes thee soft. 

And touches thee in thy sweet sleep, 
A hand that thou hast pressed so oft. 

O THOU who rolled the morning hours. 
Who raised the Earth to light. 

Who stampt with bloom the evening 
flowers. 
Awake me in my flight ! 

Teach me Hope, the peaceful ways, 

And all my gloom release, 
And throw a glory o'er my days, 

A happy dawning East. 

And in this little flight of song, 

Bring forth one ray of light, 
One touch of joy across the morn. 

To make my sorrow bright. 

And will this world prove death and 
gloom. 

And shall my sorrow wake 1 
Or I behold at glow of morn. 

My thirst and grief unslake. 

But now I list, and hear the roar. 

Of voices wild and cold. 
The howling of the storm once more. 

Familiar words of old; 

Dark seas, that beat the mournful shore, 
With long deep under tone — 

My Love's low tapping at my door. 
With hand more cold than stone I 



MY bones are mine to use below ; 

True Wisdom strangely knit 
Their little parts that they might grow, 

And hold the fount of wit. 

Within that temple of the mind, 
Should dance the sweets of joy ; 

But in this daily life I find, 
My grief a cold alloy. 

My bones are His who made them clay. 

And every joy, or woe. 
And He will lay them low that day 

I take my love and go. 

Yet by the strength of earnest soul, 
Though clay may moulder late. 

All robed in light shall I behold, 
My Ina at the gate. 

Swing wide, bright portals, swing ! 

For at the throne of Love, 
We soon shall wear our marriage ring, 

Where happy spirits rove. 



I HEARD the gloomy marches of the 
dead, 

Sound o'er me through the night. 
I saw the dark processions moving out. 

In dim sepulcral light. 

I heard the dreamy wails from unknown 
shores, 

Sweep through the deeps of space. 
I saw the opening of dark gaping doors. 

And tears stream down the face. 

I saw the myriad lovers bending down. 
In manifold dark griefs. 



I heard dear spirits rising from the bea- 
ten ground. 
And words of sweet relief. 

From the dark night of sorrow and of 
gloom, 
I heard the prayers arise, 
And heard the low soft chimes from an- 
gel homes, 
Eing glory through the skies. 

blessed hour ! high and holy dream ! 

Reflecting Heavens of light ! 
I, dwelling now with Ina once again. 

Behold her eyes to night. 



THERE is a dark unquiet stream. 
Death fords its wild Plutonian gloom. 

Death passeth as a midnight dream ; 
Dark the vail about his tomb. 

Who, down thy deep'ning track of years, 
Beholds thee if thou shalt grow old 1 

Who watch the thousand Ghosts of 
tears, 
That dance to Grief, around the soul. 

Not Man shall lift thy vail, or break 
Thy mysterious depths of night, 

Bnt constant all this orb shall waste, 
That moves to Death's dark moving 
flight : 

Thouhoverest through each dawning East 
Thy foot is on the solid land. 

And on the oak trees falling leaf ; 
And thy dark finger points at man : 

that thou wouldst lift thy vail, 
1 For one short repletive hour. 



9 



And tell, why happy days must wane, 
Why God in goodness gives thee power. 



INA I do not meet at eventide, 
To watch the season's golden gleam, 

Or witli the freshening spring abide, 
Or love the maple's autmnn flame ; 

Or watch the rising of the dawn, 

The woodbine round her arbor twine, 

The Bird, and wild flowers on the lawn, 
With her the pleasant hillside climb. 

Or hear the wild duck on the stream. 
That murmurs through my fragrant 
woods. 

And never more these banks of green, 
Shall see our boat upon the floods. 

O heart! — from these so hard to wean ! 

every place so sweet to name ! — 
O darkened shadow like a dream ! 

And I kiss not those lips again 1 



NO More for her the summer's blue, 
The silver clouds that rise in air, 

Or daisies in the morning dew. 

Whose coming made the world so fair. 

O not for her the thrushes' song, 
Or crickets' chirp upon the floor. 

To wake us in the early morn. 

When grain fields wave about my door. 

Although the same rich autumn pour 
The thrift of golden fruit again, 

For her, nothing are they more, 

And other feet roam round the grange, 



Ah who ! who shall fill her place ? 

Who beat so light my velvet lawn ; 
Love answer love in lovely face. 

When all these hundred years have 
flown. 

dearest soul, where dost thou dwell ! 

Why are these surging streams of tears. 
The tolling of the funeral knell, 

The heart bound hopes, the joys, and 
fears ? 

Shall Death lead man in triumph ? — no ! 

And through a darkened twilight wane 
Our love, upon dark deserts blow. 

Or burn to dross in sensuous flame. 



HEAR me, twinkling stars of night ! 

As Science learns me much of thee, 
what to me is all thy light, 

If God guides not upon thy sea. 

The stars, and all these outward things, 
If Science makes ye seem so bright 

When e'er I peer with upward wings, 
Through all your lengthened ways of 
light, 

how much more, when I have faith. 
Do I behold you with delight, 

Or gaze along the pathless waste, 
Or watch you in your wondrous flight. 

Ah Faith, tried angel of my thought ! 

Guide me in this tearful night. 
When body fails, and strength is not. 

When frowning Science brings no light. 

Yes ! and Faith shall be my darling — 
Ina! — I shall know thee when we meet. 



10 



May I bear an angel's wing, i 

And keep all earthly at my feet ! 

Ah Ina ! Avhen thou hoverest near, 
And thy dear spirit looks on mine, 

No worldly lore or dream, like thee ! 
Star in the golden track of Time ! 

If man could sweep the mirror lake. 
Or skim at once the depths of niglit. 

Or follow in the planets' wake, 
It would not be so strange a flight, 

As when proud Science treads — or tries 
To tread, where mind can never go ; 

Or vainly tries to prove, and rise. 
Where God can only see and know. 



I FELT how blest was faith to save 
My Love who saw the good to be. 

When late I stood beside her grave. 
Who all through life was strength to 



For in so many little griefs. 

That shadowed much my earthly shore. 
Her words of faith brought sweet relief, 

In eloquence that speaks no more. 

And now, that she and I must part, 
I know that I can heed her will : 

solace for my breaking heart, 
In this, I feel her chiding still ! 

That noble life she lived below, 
Was but her other just in bloom, 

Where loved, her heart can grow 
Renewal of her youth and song. 



Thus much that quiet faith hath done! 

Example rich! more strength in strength 
Like light that dwells beyond the sun. 

A ray that addeth length to length. 

And now from grave I turn 'to go, 
I think it not a cold farewell ; 

And thankful for such life below, 
To meet on the Elysian hill. 



AH ! through this changing day of ours, 
How strangely dashed with sun and 
shade. 

Like April in her budding bowers, 

When flying cloud with sunlight played 

Comes forth dark Doubt-0 wiience comes 
Death 1 
I wept so long o'er her closed eye — 

heart ! although we having faith. 
In tears we deeply fear to die. 

1 ask the humble blooming flower, 
That sheds its down upon her grave. 

Why Beauty lived so short an hour ? 
What nobler mound where on to wave ? 

The sunny daisy's disk of white. 

The violets' shadowy blue. 
The little cups of yellow^ light. 

The happy flowers my Ina knew. 

Ah ! is their beauty all indeed, 
These golden flowers that soon must 
die ? 

But God will save the ripened seed. 
So is it love with you and I. 



'TIS fall of day. Among the graves 
I calling to the homeless wind, 



11 



That breathes, and makes the willows 
wave, 
That to my heart now hopeless sing, 

Some dream of doubt, wild o'er and o'er, 

Of any answer that will tell, 
Or prove with truth that sweeter shore, 

Or solve Death's solemn mystery well. 

S;ic]i longings in my hopeful breast. 
Such earnest vigils held with Truth 

I seek to hail but one dear test, 
That proves to me her constant youth ; 

Some voice that comes from depths of 
night. 
Or roars along the darkening sea. 
Or speaks in morning's golden light. 
In winds that watch her grave Avith 
me. 



I CALL unto the ground. Alas! 

Grim Time opes not the graves I know ; 
The name stampt on the stone will pass ; 

How well my Ina sleeps below ! 

I call to where Mount Auburn drinks 
The beauties of the breaking morn, 

And silent in the hills doth keep 
The dust that care hath overworn. 

Vast Nature answers but a tear; 

AVild winds; sad life ; a voiceless 
grave. 
O Faith ! come quick ! Thou hoverost near 
Whose wings shed down such grate- 
ful shade : 

She proves where nothing else can prove; 
She calms all Sorrow's troubled streams; 



Makes my whole being hghtermove, 
Or lulls me more than sweetest dreams. 

lull me, when I striving climb 
Ambition's wildest rocky steeps, 

The tired and disappointed mind. 
When Effort falls or Aveeps. 

Lull me, when earthly hopes shall Avane, 

And passes by in dreary shapes. 
All my Avhole past, in loss and gain. 
That keeps these tired eyes aAvake. 

Lull me, if Passion binds his chain, 
Around my life's immortal part ; 

Or Avatch Avhoi all my feelings range. 
And pierce, and sting, this human heart. 

lull Avhen tears stream through mine 
eye, 
And pain may bring me Avild unrest ; 
No Ina here until I die, 

When falls no word from those dear 
lips! 

Lull me, Avhen I reach the gloomy shade, 
While groping toward eternal day ; 

lull me, in my last decade. 
When all this mortal fades aAvay. 



THE rainboAv spans the darkest heath : 
God's Avill; God's promise is fulfilled 

And she Avho gave in faith, her wealth 
Of soul, Avill find it better tilled, 

In lands that yield but golden fruit, 
And Avatered by Elysian rills — 

A rest that groAvs reorient, 
Forever on the tropic hills. 



12 



There is a deep within the breast, 
That no man yet hath understood, 

Where feelings dwell and find sweet rest, 
Though dark the storms may brood. 

All intellect, all subtle power. 
The impetuous strength of will ; 

How wild, and high, their billows roar. 
If God were never there to still. 

My friend! wilt thou not see thy God 
Ride those cloud chariots of the morn. 

That trail below the rainy flood, 
Or tip with burning gold the dawn ^ 

Or when those high hours of feeling flit. 
In glimpses of that angel life ; 

And all the tired nerves forget, 

And Conscience pierces wild in strife. 

O all things seem like shadow here ! 

Such futures loom, such calm repose, 
That eyes repress the bitter tear. 

Such music through our being flows ; 

Such wonders to our hearts unfold. 
Or lessons learned to guide thy feet, 

That cast a halo round the world. 

When God and human heart shall meet. 



THIS is the room. Look gently in sweet 

twilight now ! 
My Ina left it, and in it came a pause 
Yet unbroken, save when I come and go, 
Silent, as my ever deepening silent hours. 

By familiar Auburn, and that shore 
She sleeps — I groping for her hand, 
Fast by my dreary mansion door, 
The hand that claspeth mine no more. 



By the sweet low willows, and those 

groves, 
Dust is o'er the speaking eyes Hove, 
And through the long, still shadows 

scarcely moves, 
The lone twilight's mournful, purple dove. 

Her pale face, turns upward toward the 

stars 
That shine the same wheresoe'er I dwell 
And when I look through my dusky 

window bars, 
I hear no more her voice down through 

the dell. 

I shall not meet her by that gentle rolling 

water. 
And this bright dress she wore that day, 

that day ! — 
She last laid it on this chair forever — 
And this dear gold thimble in this place 

she lay. 

And these same rich curtains move never 

now, 
Pulled back to watch for me at even. 
Save when the chill night winds o'er 

them flow. 
And by the quilted spread, by soft hand's 

woven, 



WHAT murmurs from this gloomy night, 
is cold darkness all that lives 1 

Will never break an orient light, 
When seas of sorrow darkly heave ? 

The stars, it murmurs, " shine and sleep, 
And calmly roll beyond the moon ; 



13 



Their peace in stormiest nights they keep 
Across the intervales of gloom. 

Move upward ceaseless soul ! 

Watch along that glorious height 
Hope, which never can grow cold, 

The Heavenly clear, expansive light. 

O thou dark l.ouse of troubled flesh ! 

What art thou, to walk these calm vales? 
Then lie in death like yon cold West, 

In winter when the night wind wails ; 

And wails forever " All is death, 
Great Nature falls in lasting night ; 

Soul dies with man upon the heath 
As weary stags, who know not flight." 

But turn and hear a faithful voice, 
That sometimes flutters to this shore, 

And makes the angry coast rejoice, 
And I in wintery west once more. 

For comes there not from that dull light, 
A foregleam of ambrosial dawn, 

That He who made the sun shine bright 
This day, Avill bring another morn ? 

O winter's snow, and frosty wind ! 

What lays within thy chilly grave 1 
"The germs, and hope of sunny spring, 

Whose glory round my home will wave,' 



MY Heavenly Muse is with me still. 
And sings to me a hopeful lay 

Although a darkness crosses Will, 
Or hides at times immortal day. 

The doubts of heart, the sins of flesh, 
The clouds that chill Life's noon , 



Our silver calms, those clouds molest, 
And almost prove eternal gloom ; 

And though so many motions move, 
Like shadows on a pictured wall, 

In song, I only long to prove. 

That Faith will always conquer all. 



ERE the glooms of night have parted, 

And the voices of the dawn 
Raise my lids, I heavy hearted, 

I waiting for the morn, 

When the long, and pleasant shadows 
wander. 

And the winds breathe sweet and low. 
Then comes true Faith and sits beside me, 

Assuring wheresoe'er I go. 

Though life's loves are torn asunder, 

I find my Faith no dream ; 
When I wake from my lone slumber; 

My days not what they seem. 

TEARS here, but if we beat the course. 
That leads us down the tracks of night, 

And doubts arise in wildest force, 
Yet far away there must be light. 

But soul is chained upon a world. 

Where sense seems almost rule and 
king, 

Where round us wild the arrows whirl. 
Where we can only wait and sing; 

Where soul is prisoned, tone and will. 
And Love finds not its final home; 

Where Passion takes its fullest fill, 
And Hope itself lies most dethroned. 



14 



Ah Ina ! can I so fickle be ! 

And think our golden band of love 
shall break ? 
Though thou art now, no more with me, 

Or hear no more my numbers wake. 



O COME with me, and sigh in doubt no 

longer ! 
For days that were all blank and bare. 
But in constant upward looking, be thou 

stronger, 
Dream thou in more exquisite air ! 

The Lily blooms down by the silver slid- 
ing river. 

And smiles in sweetest summer morn, 

Or where the babbling brooklets low de- 
liver, 

Their music to the flowery lawn. 

It bendeth on the bosom of the sleeping 

waters. 
As sleep the sunny humble hearts, 
And where the summer's crimson twilight 

loiters, 
Breathes soft, when all the light departs. 

It riseth pure in ambrosial summer 
dawning. 

In joy expands to all the day, 

And lifts to all the winds, the Avaxen pet- 
als dreaming, 

Queen like, in June's semillant ray. 

Beautiful deep of the human heart's Af- 
fections ! 

Rest thou in my faithful bosom still. 

Lovely in all thy prayer's divine ascen- 
tions. 

The worldly empty places fill. 



Rest thou my heart ! as on the silent river 
Rests the lily soft and still, 
O sing thou in celestial joy forever ! 
As the waters by the purple hill. 

THERE moves a feeling prayers express, 
The glow, the warmth of Heavenly love, 

The beating of an angel's breast, 
The music of the life above. 

From homes of saddest, sweetest, dowers, 
AVe look upon our world of care. 

And rise, through all our living hours, 
L^pon the holy wings of prayer. 

The days are mine to understand, 
The voices in the soul's rich deep, 

And trace along the mystic land, 

God's footprints as I watch and weep. 

What tribute to the human soul. 
That dearest hope can dwell within ! 

Where grief finds not its highest goal, 
Where warm affection is no dream ! 

Not flesh, or form, or human strength, 
C»r weakness in the thousand nerves. 

Can hide the soul's immortal wealth, 
The earnest love that prayer shall serve; 

That love, that peace, that comes througli 
pain. 

That love that only lives by tears, 
Which cheers when earthly spirits wane, 

Looks through the omnipresent years. 



SIGHS, sighs ! wild wasting sighs! 

The sleets that beat the wintered trees, 
Tears adown the weary eyes. 

And from the soul, waste like these. 



15 



Dim the lights on lonely moor, 
Like Griefs that mourn in woe — 

They saddened twinkle to the shore, 
These like the Loves of long ago. 

The snows that drift my garden wall, 
Like days remembered cold and deep ! 

Those days, amid my years they fall, 
And touch with frost my dreams in 
sleep. 

So valued to my heart my tears 
For her who left me chilled below, 

They gild with love these gliding years. 
And constant keep their golden woe. 



HOLL on ! all my being roll ! 

From day to night, through tears or 
weal. 
What glories will our faith unfold, 

If we but listen when we feel. 

Let feeling prove the evermore. 

Whatever sceptic hearts have told — 

() perfect truth that shalt endure ! 
Our high and noble life of soul. 

For I shall know my tears below, 
And every pain my life may meet, 

Though schooling borne in silent woe. 
Is strengthening for the Heavenward 
feet: 

And if my Ina still had dwelt below, 
I should have lost this worth of tears : 

I find her there a sweeter life of love, 
A guiding hand through my sad years. 



TEARS fall, and many stifled sobs 
Are heard, where twines the amaranth, 
By Life's low burning lamp. 
My daffodils bow low in tears. 
And all the lily's folded bloom 
Hangs lonely in the tomb. 

Gracefully her purple fuchsia 
Bows low — low, unto the ground. 
In dismal mourning down. 

Disconsolate her roses blow ; 

Her jasimine doth weep, and weep — 

Unwatched by eyes that sleep. 

There comes a phantom from the sun, 
And Melancholy lingereth long. 
To waste with me at morn. 

So cold, and lone, I dream, and dream, 
'Tis hard to tell, and this is why — 
Ah me ! that I might die! 

RISE ! immortal strength of soul ! 

All good will overmount the wron^j. 
And God will ever hold control ; 

My grief be shadow in my song. 

What is there more than faith in love. 

The glory that outlives our names ! 
The Trust that sees across the flood, 

Though life be roaring white wit) 
waves. 
If love of God, is love of good, 

And Ina found her faith in this. 
And lived through ill in trustful mood. 

Eternal Goodness must exist. 

This truth looked out from dearest eyes 
I notice down her life's sweet plains. 

Her pain doth cease, and sorrow dies. 
And nothing but the true remains. 



16 



And good of soul shall know no end, 
Though countless dead, pile up my 
road ; 

Though Satan play his darkest hand, 
And long, vast ages wane in blood. 



THE early flowers will miss thee, dearest. 
Dearest — thou wert so dear to them, 

For sweeter then the summer's clover, 
When o'er them, thy deep blue eyes 
did bend. 

April crocus grew more tender. 
When it looked in thy fair face : 

if the flowers so miss thee, fairest, 
O more I miss thy tenderer grace ! 

Why 1 O deep delightful Nature, 

While I lonely gaze on thee. 
Dost thou mourn thy loveliest daughter ? 

Sweet Ina, now no more with me. 

And'the deepest sounding breeze made 
answer ; 
"Her song now never chimes with ours. 
We lift not her fairy floating tresses. 
Where, loved reposed the golden 
flowers. " 



COME when the night winds softly blow, 
Where the bloom of the roses grow, 

And evening echoes come and go, 
When meads repose in silvery dew. 

Come and hear the whippoorwill. 
Through silver calms of silence call; 

Or hear the robin's latest trill. 
Low lull the darkness in its fall. 



Come, when the moon-beams silvery sleep 

On the turret, on the wall ; 
Or where the pleasant waters sweep, 

Near by the tower, and silent hall. 

Come to the trees, soft bowed in rest 
Amid the blossom's folded bloom, 

When shadowy lights float down the 
West, 
And rainy mists sail by the moon. 

Come, when the light cloud floats in ai^-. 
And peaceful o'er the haunts of men. 

Or spreads its lacy edge so fair. 
Like an angel's dallying wing. 

Come, when the balms of evening blend 
With all my soul that longs for rest — 

They through my heart a message send, 
I throb with rapture to express. 

Her presence speaketh to my soul. 
In voices of the summer night ; 

They lifting when dark sorrows brood. 
The vail, unvailing deeper light. 

darkened vail ! that sometimes flits, 
Unbidden across my worldly eyes. 

When in my room alone I sit. 
And feel my spirit long to rise. 

BEAUTIFUL hours of the departed ! 

I linger to embrace thy love. 
True souls, the tried and dearest hearted, 

I knew their every look and word. 

Dear Youth ! by thee I walking saddened, 

Those days will not return ! 
When through those pleasant lawns we 
wended, 

With each young hope in turn. 



17 



Here, under Earth's high portal ever lead- 
ing 

To higher spheres of thought, 
You and I, sweet Youth, are shaking 

Hands that loving wrought. 

Half way up the olden mountains, 
That skirt life's pleasant dale. 

Those golden portals rise by fountains. 
That never strangely fail. 

And I, near by this golden gateway 
standing, 

Look back o'er dreamy youth, 
I upward to my years ascending, 

Life's vale beneath my foot. 

Mists are round us floating ; indecisions, 

Hide what before me lies ! 
Are all my worldly thoughts, and aspira- 
tions. 

Bright in my sunset skies ? 

My eyes, down from these heights de- 
scending, 
Trace through the mist, the years ; 
Dark shadows, though with glories blend- 
ing— 
Smiles first — but now, these tears. 

So in life departed, and forever, 

I watch the mists sail by, 
Saying, " By each, given, friendly favor. 

No light of Love can die. " 



WONDERFUL snow-flakes, falling a- 
round me. 
Coming from still shadows ! 



What message from the clouds might you 
bring me ; 
Beautiful forms translucent. 
Dropping as soft as the night ! 

Moving over the lins and the meadows. 
Like steps of the angels — 

Beautiful crystals in night shaded hol- 
lows; 
Wafted like whispers of love, 
Over the graves in the grove. 

Ever falling softly, softly, from above 
me, 
Messengers so peaceful. 
O'er the still steeple, the tower, and the 
hamlet : 
Silent thus forever more. 
The friend who passed my door. 

Gentlest snow-flakes, falling o'er still 
waters. 
By deep and lonely wood — 
In silence entangled in the cold icy bran- 
ches. 
They fall, as when we dream, 
Loved eyes over us beam. 

Crystaline wonders, far away in the shad- 
ows 

Of the long peaceful hill, 
Ever changeful with impalpable beauty : 

They tremble o'er the rill, 

In streaming pellicle. 

Like stars of frost in midnight gleaming, 
On dark evergreen boughs. 

Or they noiseless sleep by the cold river : 
They — little tiles of snow, 
That hide the herbs below. 



18 



The King of the winter in the solitary 
woodlands, 
Paves all the brakes with frost, 
And ruthless covers the home of the vi- 
olets : 
Softly he wafts it down. 
While low the pine trees moan. 

Beautiful snow-flakes, filling the air of 
twilight, 
Ever quiet, not smiling, so sad ! 
When I am dreaming alone by the fire- 
light — 
Like the days that have fled, 
You lay deep o'er my dead. 



BUT as I sit and sing below, 

I draw a picture of the sky ; 
A home of rest, where no more woe 

Can come, or cheering Hope can die. 

How calm a Heaven is that of ours. 
When we shall know our every good, 

When soul meets soul in happier hours. 
To touch upon the golden flood. 

O hearts that wander by these shores ! 

That wait to speak with those long 
gone. 
Who will commune forever more 

In Poesy's happiest song. 

When mother meets her boy again. 
Or father flnds his gallant son, 

Who lies below the roaring main, 
Who saw the battle lost or won ; 



When lovers meet their dear one lost, 
And earnest souls have passed their 
fate — 

I hear again her glorious voice, 
And I find Ina at the gate. 



COLD as dead hands, that lie upon a 
colder bosom, 
Pale as Death's still face. 
Lays the hills down by the icy heaving 
ocean. 
And snows about yon waste : 

Cold as departed smiles, but now in tears 
remembered, 
Or as the faded flowers, 
While thinking that the lovely summer 
streams meandered. 
Mid golden tasselled hours : 

Cold, as the last, dear touch, of my love's 
numb, waxen, fingers. 
Ere eyes forever close, 
When yet departing beauty, still radiant 
lingers. 
While wasting tear-drops flow. 

Cold, as the stars, that twinkle with sad- 
dened motion, 
From all that silent shore — 
Sad, as the broken heart, beating with 
emotion, 
When dear ones come no more. 



LOVE is the wealth that Faith awards 
Thine are these eyes of blinding tears, 



10 



Where pass the numbers of my years, 
vSo short, below these darkened orbs. 
Thine are my hopes forever more, 
And all thy homes, are homes of cheer ; 
And smiles rise angel from our tears, 
Wide entering tlirough Time's golden 
door. 

Deep Love doth hold the powers of light, 
Nor dips the rolling worlds in gloom : 
Thine are these days of hope in bloom, 
For God is love, who sweeps the night. 
Thine are these lids of wasting tears 
Where flit all night celestial dreams, 
And thine my soul, much more than these. 
Were beats life's lonely wandering seas. 

Come o'er the lawn ; be calm to night ! 
When from the starry spangled deep, 
Sweet Luna flies with fairy feet. 
Now tinkles every distant bell, 
And upward toward the milky v/ay, 
Ten thousand voices sweetly say, 
" No tears; no gloom; but all is well. " 

Now wanders every spirit down, 

From silver homes of joyous sleep. 

And rides the roaring furrowed deep. 

Now breaks no heart in wasting woe. 

But all our voices upward go. 

And looking on the world below. 

We sing and say; "why should we weep !' 



COME Love ! come dance with Life — 

not Death ! 
Through these mornings of our days — 
'Tis smiles we want — not tears ! 



The weary lay too long hath told. 
That Death doth always shadow Love; 
That Joy to darkest vales must move ; 
That earthly hopes soon waste in mould. 

'Tis Hope, more Joyous that we want ! 
For all our days at best are short ! 
These door-ways to a brighter world. 
Such glory glimmers in this life, 
Across this outer archway wall, 
what within the golden hall, 
Immortal hung with burning lights ? 

From the bright gateways of the dead. 
The radiance from those lights doth 

glance, 
Across the weeping countenance. 
Death ever passeth as a smile, 
O'er Nature's deep and sweetest face, 
And leaves a calm, Celestial grace, 
If life is made a happy isle. 



NOW breaks the buds of summer time, 
In flowers of gorgeous, deepening blooms. 
And roses smile by early moons. 
The lilac broke in splendid flower, 
And past in sweetness well away, 
Amid the springtime's freshened day, 
And crowned the season's ripened hour. 

By sunny brook, and lowly fell, 
Is tangled wild the purple bell. 
Where the silk weed bursts its shell. 
It ripenes white from mead to mead, 
And the rush grass smiling lone, 
Near by the river eddy's foam, 
Doth drop its spangled silver bead. 



20 



When life's ended season comes, 
All ripeness in the fulfilled times, 
The pearl like seed remains with love, 
And blooms in sweet, long blest increase 
Perpetual summer on the hills, 
Where love doth cheer the sleepless wills. 
Resplendent in each golden east. 

'Tis always summer here below, 
If we can feel it may be so. 
Along the flickering paths we go ! 
Beams down the true celestial ray, 
Howe'er our worldly hopes decline, 
And tips with bloom each singing pine, 
Throughout the ambrosial summer day. 

The storm that beats our garden rose. 
And shuts awhile the fragrant flowers, 
Yet glooms through arbor bowers. 
Grief does not break the heart's lone rose. 
But ere its storm hath fully past, 
The flower bends sunward from the blast, 
And drinks the dew in sweet repose. 

From world to world our phantoms cross 
The bridge we strangely build ourselves. 
Wherever sound our dismal bells. 
Our castle walls we build where Gloom 
Most darkly, ghastly, shrieking dwells. 
And hear alone life's seething wells. 
We chanting false our constant knells. 



TIME speaks in tears. The belted world 
Through fiery aeons long hath rolled. 
Through wild unrest, and woes of old. 
The seething seas of central fires 
Still find from bellowing heights, 



Mid flames of dire and lurid lights, 
Their outlets deep, then long expire. 

What thougli the fires of harrowed soul, 
Find no quick and streaming tears. 
But lie pent up through shadows here ! 
With deep convulsion heaves the breast. 
Feeling the world a dearth of years. 
Blent in burning, wasting fears. 
Ever laboring without rest. 

Ah! wafted from Life's deep at times, 
We hear the low voiced central fires, 
Wide roll around our vast empires. 
But lo ! through gates of morning light. 
Moves upward from the tropic shores. 
The balmy breath from fruitful stores. 
From fragrant orange groves by night. 

And long fields of ripened grain, 
All ready for the garner floors ; 
Abundant horns from main to main. 
Each year doth bring its timely rain. 
The harvest to the faithful heart ; 
The wreath of joy to home and hearth; 
And man shall never more complain. 



AH those days ! delicious, dear old days! 
As a sad, lone, disconsolate one, 
Taketh his lamp moving to his couch. 
We backward turn, to linger by the door. 
That closes on the loves that smile no 
more. 

My Life ! and what art thou 1 
And a voice answered ; "All things must 
die. " 



21 



() Hope ! where art thou ? 

And a voice answered "First thyself deny. 

Ah, Life's deep, delirious hour ! 
As one sits and moans all night, 
And lists to a vast and rolling sea, 
We hear the whispers of divinity below, 
Earth's smiles long interchanged with 
woe. 

Glory is even now with thee ! 
Ah, this bright flash of inward light ! 
As he who looks from out a prison cell, 
Knowing all souls must have their lonely 

hour, 
We feel while dwelling on the days of 

yore. 
Near God we are, who opes and shuts 

life's door. 



SOUL Affluence smiles in happy places 

There is no vale of teafg ! 
Life is a long and verdurous valley; 
Where flits the number of our years. 

O what seems doubt and grieving, 

Is for the faithless breast ! 
There is no hopeless dark bereaving, 

But flying shadows round thy rest. 

And when life is nearing sunset, 

never can they rise ! 
Deep, cold, unfathomed shadows, 

AVhen close these tired eyes. 

Si 

From the aisles of the forgotten, 
Luminous lights do often stream, 



With the holy revelations, 
Not mysterious like a dream. 

Not in shadows darkening deathward. 

Do they come and go. 
But with sunlights pointing upward. 

Round us their cheering lights they 
throw! 

Where spread the lakes of silver. 
When days are calm and still. 

Where the lotus blooms forever. 
Life wanders free at Avill. 

There the winds in silence moving. 
Play along the dreamy shore ; 

And the music heard at evening. 
Seems sweet forever more. 

There are roses ever blooming. 

Around us in our life. 
And sweeter landscapes looming. 

However long the strife. 



WHEN round my home the seasons fall, 
I hear through all the silver morns. 
The winding of the distant horns — 
The call across life's lins and moors. 
That summon us from sorrow's night, 
O'er throbing seas of ambiant light, 
Where swing the ever open doors. 

Sorrow is that ruthless blight. 

That mars one petal of the rose, 

We hope so perfect as it grows 

For some dear friend — that we might 

give 
One gift unsullied. While we hoped, 



22 



A deep'ning shadow ever wrote, 
" Something must blight all things that 
Uve. " 

And now this little lay I sing, 
Perchance may be a liidden flower. 
And brings to me a touch of spring : 
Or if yon read and cast it by, 
O somewhere in the fields of time. 
Its humble wreath may gently twine, 
Its truth within thy heart will lie. 

So in life forever more, 
The hearts we nurture golden grow, 
In silence on the Heaven silent shore ; 
But grow in love and light below, 
Whose sweetest memories live above, 
And like the winged Angels rove, 
Though here, alone, are dashed with woe. 



OF worlds, of things, Man is the first ! 
Why should he always sorrow most — 
And tears their raging fountains burst ? 
Why should he live with unquenched 

thirst 
For deeper springs, for angel dreams ? 
The golden glory of the scenes, 
The hundred ages long have nursed. 

Time answers "ere thy course of days 
Have run their full and blessed years, 
Wit. I all their smiles, and hopes, and tears, 
At ti nes doth glance the sun of joy 
Across thy short and worldly sleeps. 
And shining from Celestial deeps, 
Loo \ vales where grief cannot annoy." 



And Joy is that Elysian land, 

Whence moves the ever throbbing hearty 

Though all life's petals fall apart — 

And beats to music wafting out 

The numbers through the golden morns. 

The calling of the distant horns. 

To affluent fields of love and thought. 

A good in gentle tears will lie, 

If they may swell, not break the heart. 

As waves o'er lakes, soon passing by. 

what stagnation to the heart ! 

If never entered there one shade, 

Or one swift ripple sorrow made. 

One little spot of fleeting dark ! 



AS one barkens in the mountain walk. 
Sees not, but hears the far off water-fall; 

So the rustlings of each tender thought, 
Are truths that through the infinite 
call. 

Every rapturous thought that breathes. 
Every throbbing, felt or told. 

Are softest waverings of the leaves, 
In life's harvest bright with gold. 

It is not, that our friends departed, 

Are dead forever more. 
Death is reissarance to tha tender- 
hearted. 

No closing, but the opening of the door. 

Dwells here with us, a voice divine, 
Which soothes by love each dreaded 
dream. 

Unites in one, the mine and thine. 
Or calms, when bitter tears may stream. 



23 



C(.>ME Dawn ! though shadows fall be- 
tween ! 
Though doubts, and fears, may some- 
times rise, 
Though all the sceptic's darkened dream, 
Should flit across these fleshly eyes ! 

This truth is sure where'er I roam. 
And touched with light my darkest 
heaving sea ; 

God would not create true Love, 

Unless He keeps my Ina yet for me. 



If Life and Death could both be one. 
And here on Earth could be no Death, 

Then Faith and Sorrow were not born, 
then no crown, no victor's wreath ! 

And now dear friend, that we must part, 
Hard by rough rivers, you and I ! 

So wreathe Life's flowers about thy heart. 
Thou shalt not be afraid to die. 



"^y^^Mft?^ 





^ :^P 




— 5- 



'^^^^jvi 



NOTE. — Stanley in his work on the "Dark Continent" remarks; 
"that the strange legends related to him by the natives, would 
make good subjects for Poetry." In that which follows I take 
his suggestion, finding as far as I know, no poet has Written up- 
on the subject. It is supposed by geologists that Lake Tangani- 
ka was caused by the sinking of the plain in some volcanic 
upheaval. 




fHE Lotus sweet, has clasped her robe 
About her yellow down ; 
And resting in each silvered fold, 
The Elfin Smiles are born. 




Jt H STANLEY ! where ? where 
"^^ Shall rise the man, to fall 
At Nature's feet like thee 1 
To march again through mists, triumph- 
ant, 
Across an unknown land exultant, 
For nations yet to be ! 



In darkened meres alone. 
In Life we pass deep gulfs ; 
We hear the savage speak, 
And mid our tropic land of glories, 
Hear chanted loud strange stories, 
See wild the vultures sweep. 



Stanley, then these lines to thee ! 
O may the Souls that wander here. 
Like thee, keep courage long ! 
Look through these dim vapors hopeful, 
Upward, to the home immortal. 
Unto our great unknown. 



BY THE LAKE SIDE. 

/^N Lake Ny-aa-za's silver shores 
%s) Tiie waxea Lotus bloarns, 
And sways aad floats by rushy moors, 
B3I0W the silent moons. 

By splashy brink, the lily sleeps. 

Around the dells of balm, 
And where the long grass bends and 
weeps 

Below the fronds of palm. 

The tropic nights are still and lone, 
Where beetles booming, bound; 

And golden winged, from leafy home, 
The insects, humming, sound. 

From wood of thorny brake and brier, 

The lizard creeps in gold. 
And dashed with green and bronzen fire, 

He flaunts his gorgeous robe. 

The moon looks down between the palms, 

A magic eye at night, 
The glory of the tropic calms, 

A holy, still, delight. 

Enthroned around her hundred shores, 

Nyanza's beauty sleeps ; 
And twinkling from the golden doors, 

The starlight wondrous sweeps. 

The Lotus now has clasped her robe, 

About her yellow down ; 
And resting in each silver fold, 

The Elfin Smiles are born. 

^olus sweeps his evening lyre. 
The fine and deepest song. 

From wood to wood, the flower empire, 
All night till crimson dawn. 



He flings his ballad for the flower, 
The silken Lotus Queen, 

And laughs to all the midnight hour. 
Below the moonlight's beam. 

But then the Lotus looks and dreams, 
Entranced upon the lake, 

To hear the sweet caressing winds, 
Long keep the palms awake. 

Dream on fair Lotus ! gently dream, 
The days glide sweet for thee ! 

Alone, you grace the tropic stream. 
You waft a song to me. 



The morning woods are deep in bloom, 
And broad the tropic leaves, 

Where all night glanced the crescent 
moon. 
Where emerald interweaves. 

On Nyanza's shore the moss is deep. 

And fragrant is the wood ; 
'Tis hardly here a step dotfc sweep 

The awful solitude. 

The rush at night aloud complains. 

To all the silent grove. 
Where patters loud the tropic rains, 

Or mottled adders move ; 

Or where at times the deepened sound. 

Of dark Nyanza's roar — 
Of mossy branches falling down, 

When storms are on the moor. 

O once ! in earth's chaotic hours, 

In pre-Adamic times, 
Here raved on solitary shores. 

The lone and boisterous winds : 



As then dark monsters tumbled wild, 
On long forgotten strands, 

So alligators gloomy filed, 

Here roll on golden sands. 



PHANTOMS OF TANGANIKA. 

WILL warn you of the forest. 
Of the dreary mountain Goma, 
The shadows of lake Tanga-nika ; 
How a mighty Spirit moves in woe, 
Where the haunted wild Winds come 

and go, 
And sway the tropic swamps below. 

I will tell you, how the mighty Ma-a-anda, 
The spirit of the boisterous South-wester, 
Blows o'er the giant shoulders of dark 

Goma ; 
How his wings dip downward in the lake. 
How he ever stoops, and wildly makes 
His horns blow loud, and keeps the woods 

awake. 

I will tell you, how the dusky natives. 
Look up to him in awe and wonder. 
And call him the " God of Thunder !" 
At night they watch Him ride the cloud, 
Enwrap dark Goma with His shroud, 
Watch Tanganika into furrows ploughed. 

I tell you of the savage black Wajiji, 
Of the strange romantic legends. 
And how they skim the lonely waters. 
Build their homes by pleasant streams. 
Live their wizard life of dreams, 
Where drops the sun his torrid beams. 



O'er the bright and lurid waters, 
The bewatow, his canoe he paddles, 
Made of wood from Goma's forest ; 
Sly as a venomed snake, 
It skims on Tanganika's lake, 
Nor even leaves a ruffled wake. 

He wields his iron wood n-gafy, 
The paddle wide, with figures graven, 
Burned with red hot stone and iron — 
Then like a witch from some dark shore. 
He lanched bewato from the sandy floor. 
And shouted on the lake once more. 

Black as night upon the waters, 
He stands wth naked shoulders. 
With his bracelets hammered copper; 
The limbs are striped with fiery red, 
A rim of fuzz about the head, 
Thus he o'er Tanganika sped. 

Belts of brass, and feet unsandalled ! — 
Wore he on his dusky bosom 
Weird stripes of paint of ochre yellow, 
And bore his shield, made from the cane, 
Inwoven with the reeds that came, 
From U-lom-bo-lo's hill and plain. 

Yet ere night came on in darkness, 
We heard him o'er the waters calling, 
To the great spirit Mu-zi-mu. 
The darkening shores re-echoed long, 
As though the night were demon-born. 
And heard his plaint from night to morn . 

BY THE RIVER SIDE. 

TrT WAS the Lady Alice, 
"TO That had a stalwart crew, 
That floated down the river. 

Where fronded palm trees grew. 



6 



On Lu-a-la-ba's darkened waters, 

Soft the day declined, 
And sweet the lullaby of waves, 

Sang with the evening wind. 

Here on the banks and silver reaches, 
Grows the spear grass wild. 

And the Borabax pillars high, 
Ipomea purple twined. 

Phrynium, lush and greenest fronded. 

Vied with Araonium deep. 
Where Myrrh low slept by Cassia's side, 

Capsicum's scarlet berries peep. 

In U-ganda's darkened solitudes, 

The Lu-a-laba flows. 
And dreamy kisses all the shores, 

Where pale Mimosa bows. 

Majestic in its loneliness, 

Lu-a-laba soundeth on, 
And dancing in vast cataracts, 

Leaps downward into foam. 

And sweeping toward the deep Atlantic, 
Roars through the Edens lone. 

Through the breaks of wild Ba-gongo, 
Mid solitudes of bloom. 

The Iron-trees, lift their heads trium- 
phant. 

O'er Aloes, and the Date, 
And Gum-trees toss their giant heads, 

As Kings about a golden gate. 

Hyphene spreads its plumes resplendent, 

The banners of the land, 
O'er looking all the emerald deeps, 

Untouched by hand of man. 



Us-nea moss trailed through the shadows, 
Amid the dusk of Cotton wood. 

Where blows the perfume and the spice, 
Floats o'er wild Lu-a-laba's flood. 

Beautiful river flowing seaward in thy 
still splendor, 
What golden linns embrace thee in 
thy glow, 
Or where thou ever lo vest to lone meander 
As onward through the gold you go. 

Thou art like Life's quick river, mystif 
flowing. 
Mid rocks, or now by fragrant moor, 
With the ever constant sweet, sweet 

aspiring, 
To mingle with untra veiled fields so pure. 

The tropic spices blow, and o'er thy 
silver stream is wafted, 
A dream from the elysian lands, 
And the blue and lovely Lotus bloometh 
unmolested. 
Near by thy bed of silver sands. 

Beautiful days of dreamy sun light most 
Majestic, 
Look o'er thee like a constant love, 
And charm the with an untold spell mag- 
netic, 
As falls the sweetness from above. 

And when thou niovest through somt 
shadow mid thy gloom, 
Thou laughest still in love ambrosial, 
Flowing ever, ever toward the deep At- 
lantic, 
Beneath the brightness of thy sky, and 
silver of the moon. 



Dream on fair river — with all thy silent 

golden flood ! 

The future days of awakening nations, 

In all their pomp, and deepest aspirations, 

Ere long will haunt thy shores with 

voices of unquietude. 



'TWAS on the shores of Lu-a-laba, 
When Stanley came and saw 

The vision of a rising nation, 

And battled with the stormy flaw. 

The storm of doubt while watching 
By the flickering camp fire light, 

O'er all his heart in silence swept ; 
But ere the morn did take its flight — 

" This river is for the rising nations, 
Its conquest vast shall be mine own ! 

And I will show to coming ages, 
Where Lu-a-laba' s waters roam," 

In the forests of Uregga, 

Where looms the Paphrus tree, 

In solemn woods of dark U-zim-ba, 
Where macaw's fly in glee ; 

In desolate dark Ka-rin-da, 

Where tangled jungles wild enfold. 
Or where dwells the savage Ma-an-yema, 

Glancing cold and bold ; 

He heard the rushing Lualaba, 
Glide beyond the wood below, 

And heard the forest monsters bellow, 
The babboons howl and blow. 



True Stanley, in the Lady Alifce, 
The boat built for the noble crew, 
Floated wide upon the waters, 
And waved the woods adieu. 
At the prow stood up Uledi, 
The coxswain bold and quick, 
Fred Pocock the true and faithful, 
Who all the chords of friendship knit. 
But they sailed, mid shadows and the 

gloom. 
As flies the weary wild duck southward, 
When wanes the autumn's chilly moon. 
Each day did have its ugly shadow, 
Each hour its happy noon. 
But Stanley stood undaunted. 
Saw God upon those waters move. 
O hear the whistle of the arrow. 
And the tramp of savage feet ! 
In the wilds of the Ma-an-yema ! 
And the dismal war drums beat ! 
The arrows tipt with poison. 
Like the adder's fiery fang. 
Twinging, twanging through the forest, 
Whistling by the golden yam. 
And now the Cannibals, Wabembe, 
Howl like wizards round their torch, 
And balancing their sharp isangi, 
Tney hurl it like the lightnings dart. 
But the river, gentle river. 
Echoed, echoed back the demon sound. 
As though the midnight skies were riven, 
But God's Angel had looked down. 
O hear the miserery rattle. 
From the forest deep and dank ! 
The ghastly shrieking war-cry "bo bo " 
For we red human blood have drank." 
And now the clashing sharp isangi, 
On long and pod like shields. 
And the echoes through awful silence. 



8 



When the war-cry ceases in its peal. 



wild voices of the forest ! » 
Waft the Echoes whirling, 
Down the river, up the valley, 
Over Tanga-nika. 

Hark — Ah listen longer, longer ! 
In their wild departing, 
C>'er the golden wood lands sleeping. 
Sighing over Tanga-nika. 

Chase the wild winds to the ocean, 
When the palm trees cease their waving 
Laughing vaguely to the river. 
Dreaming over Tanga-nika. 



THE 
LEGEND OF TANGA-NIKA. 

fr¥^HE Waters dance by leafy isles, 
4p5 And sweet the shores of balm, 
The shady shore, a lumdred miles, 

And tufted with the fronded palm. 

The little ripples silvered break. 

Around the golden tropic height, 

Keposing o'er the glassy lake. 
Like waving spots of light. 

here the happy islands lie. 
Where all the world is still ! 

And where the bronzen beetles fly, 
Rich horns are fullest filled. 

Between the isles the water sleeps, 
Around the banks of gold. 

Reflecting wide the emerald steeps, 
Where warmest shades enfold. 



A round the shore the mosses creep, 

And Tanganika laughs, 
To see the sedgy grasses beat 

By ripples as they pass. 

And while I dreamed, this alien shore, 

Awoke in lovely song. 
And whispered wide, from reed to reed, 

A lay that lingers long. 

I can but dream my life away, 

By Tanganika's side. 
And feel sweet airs about me play. 

Deep murmurs from its tide. 



'Tis Avhere these broadened waters roam, 
For many a mile, above, below. 
Where zephyrs sweep the crystal bay, 
The darkened forest once did loom. 
Here slept the long primeval day. 
Here spread a long luxuriant plain, 
And earlier plants were sweet embowered, 
The tinkling streamlet found its way. 

In peace the tropic herds did feed — 
Ah then arose a voice of woe ! 
Low sank the pleasant lands that day, 
By Tanganik'a whispering reed. 
The plain was rent from vale to hill, 
And darkened Goma moaned aloud ; 
The hills were whirled in utter woe. 
Where sleepeth now the lake so still. 

could I tell you this rich storj' ! 

To show the heart the strength of Love ! 

How it conquers o'er all beauty, 

How its visions gilded move. 

Though stretched out before theeyesi'ght 



Laid an Eldorado's gold, 

A land burning rich in flowery tropics, 

A brilliant, constant widening world; 

If the heart should love, in loving 
Were to lase this vast domain. 
Still, hearts would love ! still enduring, 
Though swept with fire the golden plain. 
So that day, near wild U-ji-ji, 
Queen Tanganika's love was true. 
For that love she lost her realms, 
Lost all where graceful gardens grew. 

Her King, her roaming husband. 
Great ruler of U-ji-ji land, 
The wild hunter Oma-zimba, 
For his, had taken her hand. 
In the hours of her deep silence. 
At times he left her tent alone, 
But heard an echo, and the cadence. 
Her voice across the valleys moan: 

Left her there beneath the thatching. 
In a round and lonely hall. 
Built by the dark U-jiji savage. 
With hieroglyphics on the wall. 
Glanced the fire-light in the evening, 
Outward through the night. 
And upward o'er the magic ceiling, 
Like a dim and wizard light. 

Here loomed a shield of dire dimentions. 
Made and twisted from the thorns 
That grew ih U-vi-zimba's forests, 
And ornamented wild with horns. 
Here stood the tall and sharp isangi. 
Spears made from noisy reeds 
That skirt the shores of windy marshes. 
Where the ibis comes and feeds. 



Here were robes of richest crimson. 
Where the fire light gloated o'er. 
Streams of feathers running like the rivers 
Whitened, by deep colored shores. 
Round about within the darkness, 
Reddened by the glimmering fire. 
Shone the shadows dim and dismal. 
As the night- wind swept his doleful lyre. 

Not the tent of ancient Darius, 

Rich with Jewells, eastern queens. 

Did ever hold a spell more mystic. 

Or something golden crowned in dreams. 

Not the homes of old Egyptians, 

Looking o'er Sierra's wilds. 

Did hold a spell more magic gilded. 

Than this that gazed o'er tropic miles. 

Grim through the darkness and silence, 
Shrieked on high the sounds of the night. 
And she heard the voice of the heron. 
Afar o'er her meadows of light. 
Wistful sat Queen Tan-ga-nika, 
Thoughtful and voiceless, alone. 
Or peered to the dark and the shadows, 
That stalked like ghosts by the moon. 

Silent o'er her dusky shoulders glancing, 
Moved the cold and silvery ray, 
That touched a ring of bronzen copper, 
Adorning where the dark locks stray. 
All from her waist down streaming, 
Trembled in the moonlight's beam 
A gauzy robe wih feathers woven, 
Near to an ebon foot did lean. 

And then her face ! and sad with speaking, 
" I in my forest alone forlorn ! 
I, who should only well be dreaming ! 
Some one to love me, when I am lone ! 



10 



These are my own bright golden moun- 
tains — 
Who doth love with me each stream 1 
Yonder lays my plain U-ji-ji ! 
Beneath the silver moon, a dream ! 

He comes not — He cometh never ! 
To count with me yon silver stars, 
Or watch the moon's white horn low 

waning, 
The meteors, trailing, fiery cars. 
My own dark king Oma-zimba, 
Comes not, is ever, ever gone ! 
He hunts in the forests of far U-gan-da ; 
He never loves me when I am lone. 

Beneath the splendid star-light, 
He bids me oft a long farewell. 
And leaves me alone in coldest moon-light 
My own own song to tell. 
Deep is the grave, but my heart is deeper. 
Like the deep below yon dark west. 
But it never shall be a desolate sleeper, 
Though his head is never laid on my 
breast. 

Gone to Goma's dark forests, 
Leaving me dead ; forever he is gone ! 
And I hear but the murmur of waters, 
Instead of his voice, when I am lone. 
Hark — I hear the war drums beating ! 
Far away to the silent plain, 
But my heart is ever repeating; 
Oma-zimba, Oma-zimba, his name. " 

TRUE as the heart of a lovely woman, 
She awaited his coming again ; 
Yet ere the days fell in their gloaming. 
His coursers like ships traced over the 
plain. 



Afar to the beautiful westward, 
Against the crimson and gold, 
She spied him and his hunters marching 
Across the desolate wold. 

Up to the village near, and nearer, 
Drew the still caravan lonely aftd sad. 
With clashing of shields, and weird isanga 
With beating of drums, and shouts as mad. 
Strange drums made of skins stretcliing, 
As a plate o'er the shell of a gourd, 
With sticks made from the ebony growing 
By streams where tropical waters loud 
roared. 

Ere Oma-zimba returned from hunting, 
Well laden with ivory, and hides, 
What had come to his ear, what rumors ? 
From his mountain home, and his bride. 
Like the coming of a sudden shadow. 
Hiding half the forward path. 
He had learned that the love of another. 
Had stolen Tan-ga-nika's lone heart. 

Like the brow of a darkened mountain, 

O'er-watching a fertile plain 

Graced with earliest flowers, Oma-zimba, 

Spoke to his queen her name. 

" Tanga-nika who has loved thee ? 

Where the feet that beat my flowers ; 

Where the leech, and the tyrants ? 

Where the heart that scales my bowers ? 

" Rings of copper, double brasses, 

For him who can my life divide ! 

Poisoned arrows, sharp isangais. 

For him who near thee rides ! 

Swift rods of red hot iron, 

That will bind him in my wrath ; 

O why part from me thus forever ! 

Tanga-nika ! light of my onward path." 



11 



As when ths beautiful moon at dawning, 
In that rich gold of summer time, 
Sarinks away at the sun's sharp rising, 
So she shrank before her King. 
Then spoke loud dark Omazimba. 
" Hear me my Queen, my light ! 
Hear me ! lovely Tanga-nika ! 
I call a curse from Goma's mountain 
height. " 

" The red fire, and the Earthquake, 

Shall waste thy fairest lands ; 

And Goma pour his mighty darkness, 

O'er thee in molten burning sands. 

You will hear at night the Spirit Ma-a-an- 

da, 
Blow his wild and torrid breath. 
All his horns the rocks will echo. 
And the mountains loud will mutter 

" death. " 

"From the forests of U-en-ya-ma, 
Inward all the clouds shall roll ; 
Wild from the depths of Ulom-bo-lo, 
All the Lotus bells shall toll. 
Then think, think, O Tanganika ! 
When thy plains are sinking down, 
Of me, your spouse, King Omazimba, 
When the warning trumpets, distant 
sound. 

" Ah yet a sweet farewell, farewell ! 
Again I leave you all alone ; 
But with your people round you; 
And some one will woo you, when I am 

gone. 
Here is a Secret my Tanganika ! 
If you speak it — surely thou wilt die! 
No one knows the magic Secret, 
But the stars, the hills, the air, and I. 



"In the lucid pool near thy dwelling, 
In those amber waters swim 
Five, lustrous, golden Magic fishes— 
They scarcely ever near its rim. 
When one is caught. Earth shall falter, 
Wild fires shall swamp the plain, 
This glorious land shall sink forever ; 
And thou shalt be a lasting name ! " 

About her glanced the dawning cheerly, 
Life of flowers or luscious bloom ! 
Streamed the Sun in gold resplendent, 
l>ancing on the hills till noon. 
Once more where rolls the tropic forest. 
The reddened feathers brightly flaunt. 
Amid the hordes of Oma-zimba, 
Shining shields, and sharpened dart ! 

" Farewell, farwell, to Tanganika! 
Queen of my life ! my star! " 
Shouted wild dark Oma-zimba; 
Echoed loud the tam-tam drums of war. 
She watched him o'er the tropic valleys. 
Waving her his last adieu, 
Warning her, and quick departing. 
Where tall and sober palm trees grew. 

" LE-LO ! I am left in the forest alone ! 

No one to love me ! no one to cheer ! 
But my people, they are ever all happy, 

Never one shadow, never one tear. 

O, the waters all, are as brilliant, 
And the sun shines over my plain ! 

The birds and the deer in my forests, 
They are happy, are happy again. 

My days are fleeting like shadows. 
But the sun of his day shall wane! 

For I am tired of this constant repeating, 
Oma-zimba, Oma-zimba, his name! 



12 



Another Love has come to love me ! 

When the king is gone he comes to me. 
The waters of my babbling brooks, 

Do ripple all their lights in glee. 

To my love they happy sing, 

And all my forests shout with joy ! 

Xot one burden can they bring, 
My love shall always be that joy. 

I pound for him the cassia sweet; 

I spin for him about my loom ; 
My love in all my walks I meet ; 

For him I pluck the lotus bloom. 

My days are sweet, and never more, 
I weave my daily web in woe ; 

1 dash to earth the grief I wore, 

While through my luscious lawns 1 go. 

My garden smiles from flower to flower, 

Ipomea twines the high palm tree ; 
I meet my love in garden bowers ; 
. He whispers in the shade with me. 

(rood by! Good by the parted days ! 

I pluck my lilies for my love ! 
He comes and goes where sun-beams lay: 

Let Oma-zimba distant rove. 
Is ray garden bright and sweet ? 

Can all this sunlight constant last ? 
All these bright flowers do kiss our feet, 

And seem to smile when e'er we pass. 

I meet my love where the lotus blooms, 
Where the white doves come and go ; 

1 meet him where still forests loom, 
In flowery tasselled glades below. 

I meet him in the twilight hours, 
When the crimson fires the west ; 

I meet him in my garden bowers. 
When gayest birds have fled to rest. 



The moon looks down upon our love. 
She dips for us her silver horn. 

And lingers late and sweet above. 
Ere she lone sweeps the purple morn.' 



IT is in the beautiful tropical morning, 

When the days are golden and sweet, 

Under her tent's low silken awning, 

Queen Tanga-nika we meet. 

Below all the silver sunlight streaming, 

Many a brilhant robe laid there, 

And through the wild acacia gleaming, 

The garb of her lover, the star of her lair. 

Beautiful day of the tropics ! 
When the sun dipt over the flowers, 
And glanced o'er the rivers resplendent. 
In the glow of the golden hours. 
The tent stood near the garden embowered 
Trailing with trailers of red. 
With the silver of the waxen lilies, 
And the balms of the rose's bed. 

Beautiful eyes of rich Tanga-nika ! 
Blooming from a deep dusky brow ! 
Ringed by a ring of sparkling copper, 
And haloing the beauty below. 
Beautiful home of quaint Tanga-nika ! 
In the far away U-ji-jian land. 
Where no shadow seemeth to linger. 
Where time runs its clear golden sand. 

Came down by the river her Lover, 

When King Oma-zimba had gone. 

And flattered, and loved her, and won 

her. 
In the light of that tropical morn. 
Under the tent's silken awning, 
They graced the dark velvet lawn, 



13 



And loved there till the bright starlight, 
Trembled to the life of their song. 

They sang to the wonderful river, 
And saw the new moon's horn. 

That dipt beneath the crimson flood, 
Glow to the echo night and morn. 

Tliey drank the glory from the starliglit, 
For theirs was love for love ; 

They heard the murmurs of the night, 
Love's sweetest footfall move. 

A gift of love, the j^alm trees shaking 
downward 

The full orbed luscious fruit ; 
The wild flowers oped their hundred bells, 

The soft winds played their lute. 

From the shades of dim Umbolo, 
From the forests balmy deep, 

(^ame the whispering of peace ; 
Hyphene drooped itself in sleep. 



F^nwrapt in Nature's finer lap entranced, 
On him she gazed she loved forevermore, 
Or gave each wish, he often asking, 
Tlie magic herb, or dish, or flower. 
Then the days went onward rolling. 
And the tropic sunlights burned, 
Each new day another boon well given, 
(irief, to glory constant turned. 

Bright the sun beyond the twilight, 
Across the evening's golden bars, 
As they wandered by that little fountain, 
Where five fishes gleamed like stars. 
Then with saddened air her lover. 
Surprised, looked down and saw them 
gleam. 



'Of these beauties. Queen, thou hast not 

told me ! 
All thy dear heart, but these I have not 

seen ! " 

Then fell her eyes like ebon beauties, 
DoAvn droping like sweet flowers in f ro^, 
But raised them in impassioned glances, 
"These are of all my plains the most ! 
Unless I bent to love thee dearest. 
These things were never seen by thee ! 

grant me this, and this forever ? 
Ask of these no more of me." 

" Why hide from me this mystery?" 
Sighed her lover ; "why ever more ; 
Ah, if you truly love me you will tell me 
Every secret you have known before ! 
Tell me, from that deep breast of beauty ! 

1 can kiss you, and still watch you, 
Love and flatter, long caressing. 
Trusting thy sweet smiling, nothing more. 

True love knoweth not denial ! 

Yet with hesitation long and deep. 

Flowed the words from Tanga-nika, 

Like waters when the azures weep. 

" We have caught and eaten, 

This fish, together served them now. 

Ah to late, no retraction ! 

You my love, this dreaded secret know." 

Then, as when o'er ancient Eden, 
Rose that wild and wasting sword, 
And they from the closing gateway, 
Left the land of grape and gourd ; 
So fell the Curse of Oma-zimba, 
That day, o'er Tanganika's plain, 
And the dark Spirit Ma-a-anda, 
Wafted downward death and flame. 



14 



No more the crimson sunset's waning ! 
The silver of the tropic morn, 
No caresses by th^ moon-beams nightly, 
No more evenings on the lawn ! 
Swept the fire and earthquake. 
Wild Goma sighed aloud ; 
Sulphurous fires came earthward, 
Down sank the solid ground. 



Once more the months had waned, 
Once more the moon did dip her horns ; 

But no more Queen Tanga-nika's plains, 
Grew sweet with trees tnd lawns. 

Hark — the tam-tam's distant beat! 

Long lines of hunters on the hills ! 
And harshest noise of tramping feet — 

No murmuring of the tinkUng rills. 

In the silence so still, and so wild. 
Line on line, from plain to plain, 

Came processions gloomy filed, 

And shouting loud Queen Tanga-nika's 
name. 

O'er the brow of Goma's dreaded height, 
Many a dusky savage streamed, 

And flaunted grim in sunset light 

Their spears, like demons seen in 
dreams. 

King Oma-zimba, stood that night 

On wild Uji-ji's hill, 
And saw in tears, the death and blight. 

That long had left the valley still. 

Loud he wept to all the stars; 

" My Curse has fallen on my Queen!" 
Gazed beyond the crimson bars, 

Where not one ray of hope did gleam. 



Instead of Tanga-nika's fruitful plain. 
Below him stretchd a dark blue lake. 

Where once she ruled a Queen of fame, 
There lay a wild, resplenJe:itdeep. 

O.-na-zimba sighing long and loud, 

" Twas Love that ruled her more than 

Fate, " 
And round him drew his darkened shroud, 
Named those waters " Tanga-nika'i^ 
Lake. " 



I have told you of Oma-zimba ! 
You should hear at night the whispers. 
Moving o'er the mystic waters, 
The voices in the palm tops, 
The murmurs of dark Ma-a-anda, 
Telling wildest, saddest, stories, 
Hovering over Tanga-nika. 

I have told you of this faithful woman. 
For her lover sacrificing all things. 
Woman's Gem, is her Affection ! 
Her deepest, sweetest, sphere of action. 
I have told you of this kingdom, 
How love did lead to ruin. 
How Tanga-nika told her secret ; 
How she won that love and lost it ; 
How she gained a love, and kept it ! 
How on the lake of Tanga-nika, 
The wild Winds wail the Legend. 



ON LAKE TANGA-NIKA. 



W"^ 



;ERE rise the rocks of gloomr 
Goma, 
An azure, crystal water sleeps, 



1.-) 



And looms in dusk from age to age, 
Below the adamantine ledge, 
Where the spear grass sways and weeps. 

Looms this mountain dim and dreary, 

Like a spectre dark at night, 
In solemn grandeur downward looks, 
O'er Tanga-nika's dismal nooks, 

Wliere sleeps for years the still star light. 

On the heights of dismal Goma, 

At night loud wails are heard, 
The voice from Tanga-nika's shore. 
Repeating legends o'er and o'er 

The thunder's wild and bellowed dirge. 

O hear at night, the windy voices ! 

From U-lom-bolo's forests lone, 
Loudly call to Goma's side. 
Sweeping o'er the watery tide, 

On waves that babble to the moon. 

Awhile recline at quaint U-ji-ji, 

When the golden day declines. 
In twilight's long and idle hours, 
Rest thou below the palms and bowers, 

Or listen to the tropic winds. 

In those far deeps of solitude, 
In Goma's forest, rich and deep. 
The reddened sunbeams scarcely glance 
But many a tree its banner flaunts, 
And fronds of sweet bananas weep. 

Vet in the sunset crimson, beautiful ! 
Into russet, into purpling gold, 

Are changed the tufts of umbrage deep, 



And near the cascade's lacy leap, 
Ilyphene palms embower the steep. 

In airs semillant, sweet mimosa 
With glories grace the fading day, 
And in loved airs they gently breathe, 
In golden robes at pleasant eve — 
Dream by Tanga-nika's lake away. 

Sweet valleys of the Lu-e lama, 
With their affluence, flowery linns, 
Where sweet Ipomea fragrant moves. 
When stirs the zephyr, calmly roves. 
Still flits the sunset's crimson wings. 

There upon the borders of Tanga-nika, 
The little ripples break, and kiss 

The silver sand for mile on mile ; 

And by the moors, in tufted file, 
The sweet bell blooms in worlds of peace. 

O'er hill and dell of dark U-om-bo, 
You hear the hundred tinkling streams, 

The voices of the forest sigh. 

Here is luxuriance deep for thee ! 
The glory of thy golden dreams ! 

By Tanga-nika's lonely sedges, 
The silent water ripples in sweet grace. 
Scarce ankle deep from reed to reed, 
And long bill dippers come and feed. 
Wide, in and out the brittle brakes. 

The Ibis, like a graceful lady, 
Here pads in all the golden sand, 
In downy white, from head to foot. 
And listens to the low wind's lute 
That hums through reed, or meadow-land. 



16 



From high, loud wliistling sedge sus- 
pended. 
Dreams to the day, the quiet homes 
Of scarlet hirds, and yellow breast, 
Wlio haunt these shores of sweetest 
rest, 
Where dips the mystic gleaming moons. 



Crowned birds of gold, and green resplen- 
dent, 
Cut circles in the silvery suns ; 

The noise of care is far away ; 

Man haunteth not the silent air, 
And Nature lingers long in prayer. 




GONE. 



)EAT on — wild billows — beat ! 
'J^ For the roll of thy voice is sweet to 

me; 
I loved the song of the moaning sea; 
Beat on — blue billows, beat ! 

Beat on ! wild billows — beat ! 

For the smile of my love has fled from 

me ; 
And I hear the roar of the sounding sea, 
AVhispering forever, and ever, to me. 



The night is cold — ah yet am I ! 
But the sound of the breakers will 
die! 



not 



Though a ceaseless tear may moist mine 

eye, 
Though I beneath the billows lie. 

Beat on ! bold billows — beat ! 
For the roll of thy voice is sweet to me ! 
I loved the song of her across the sea ; 
O beat — bold billows beat ! 

When again I hear the sound of her voice, 
Thou wilt ripple, and beat, and beat. 
Singing the song of thy will — Old Sea! 
Willing to laugh, and laugh, with me ! 



MYSTERY. 

^RE AT Voices rolled, 

From the Ocean old, 
From the waves in windy clamor, 

With a cadence deep, 

That round me beat, 
Touched the soul with a woe and glamour. 

The sobs of the Sea, 

Are a Joy to me, 
Though they wail o'er the billows of 

splendor ; 

And my thoughts that float, 

Like a lonely boat, 
Move by the Sea, like the witches of 

Endor. 

The seaweeds shook , 

On the rocks that look, 
To the dark deep sea forever ; 

Then my heart stood still, 

To the Ocean's will, 
But my dreams, like the tides, cease never, 



UNDER THE PINES. 

CTJChE Sails are still, on yon blue sea, 
4» And warm the air's ambrosial flight; 
Ah gentle is the hour for me ! 
An hour of holy, blest, delight. 

How fair the winds have grown in air, 
While spring has smoothed the crested 
wave — 

And here I feel no weight of care ; 
My heart moves like the seas again. 

O soft and low, I hear the sighs. 
Of ocean on the shores. 



Or in the pines, the deep replies, 
Like echoes from cathedral doors. 

And now the organ old sounds sweet — 

Voices from celestial vaults, 
The dulciana low and deep. 

The melodia whispering, " sleep. " 

Now hark ! now hear, those voices old. 
Like the cadence of the early spheres. 

Ere man was cast in God like mould, 
Around the vast cathedral roll ; 

The worship of old Ocean choirs. 

Heard faintly through the dusky aisle. 

Angels stepping silent floors, 
Chanting in the holy hours. 

grey old sea ! old sea ! 

How deep thy whisperings are , 
That utterest all thyself to me. 

And murmurest to the polar star. 



WHISPERS. 

SAW the new horned moon. 
Ride still along the deep ! 
I heard the long swells roll. 
Incessant in their beat ; 

Incantations from the west. 
Calm as the night so lone, 

Saying ' " Weary spirit rest. 
Unburdened be thy soul. " 

In rapture long I watched, 
The moon beams on the sea, 

In mantles pale and bright. 

Enchanting, like deep eyes to me. 



Nor I alone, but wilt thou, 

Often at the evening hour, 
Sit musing by the wave, 

Wondering at the roar. 

O not the sun wake seems, 

Grander than the dark blue deep ; 
let me hear the sea. 

Beat loud the wind blown steep. 

Sweet starlight skirts the flood. 
Where the calm sea in twilight 

Sleeps — clear, and cloudless, broad, 
A marvelous dream of night. 

The great Sea sighs in words 
The poem God hath wrote : 

There upward like the white sea birds, 
My golden visions float. 

Thou, on thy dark, dim, shore, 
Beating like a troubled heart ; 

Like thought forever more. 
So low and sweet at dark. 



ALONE. 

SAILED upon the waste in midnight 
shadows. 
And heard the raving sea. 
I saw the waves, like treacherous tongues 
of adders. 
Beat back my boat from me. 

No bark was on the wailing ocean, 

No lights upon the shore. 
But whirling and the wild commotion, 
As though the dawn would break no more. 
I drove my little shallop landward, 



I paced the howling beach ; 
I heard the shrieking sand dragged down- 
ward, 
Across the desolate reach. 

Then I knelt upon the rocks at midnight, 
And I thought of Christ upon the wave. 

And waited for the morning starlight : 
O let the billows rave ! 



THE WATER QUEEN. 

fAIR emblem of the great eternal ! 
Queen ! thou grand old Deep ! 
Following forever the golden courses of 

the Sun, 
Dipping to the eastward, to the tropic 

isles, 
Unvarying in thy certain tides — 
Thou ever rockest the sailor as he sleeps, 
And softly round the mariner's keel, thy 

beauty gently sweeps. 

Thou hast been heard for centuries. 
Wildly murmuring on thy shores. 
Man can love, or not love, thy music : 
He cannot mimic these incessant roars ! 
But thou wilt do with him as thou wilt, 
And he drops, despairing, all his hundred 
oars. 

Thy moods are varying ever, 
Great kings have bowed to thee : 
Thou hast washed the shores of tyrants. 
And sang thy loud, and solemn anthems. 
Where proudly rise the cities of the free. 
Thou hast been smiled at like a queenly 

lady, 
By the world's great scholars, and nations 

long will bow to thee. 



What heart can read all thy divinity, 
Full understand my wonderous Sea 1 
To day she is pale, and dressed in mourn- 
ing, 
And the waves are seething white and 

free. 
Then after hours of sleep and tremor, 
With the clear dawn's first fair gleaming, 
She dances round the rocky head-lands 
wild in glee. 

Who can wholly follow, this queenly 

rover. 
Coquetting in her moods so strangely 

sweet ! 
She now in all her sunny color flushes — 
And now she whispers low and deep. 
Enchanting in her loveliness and glory. 
Then with a frown of reproving silence, 
As a lady to her lover, putteth her finger 

to her lip. 

So in moods, and thus forever. 
Doth all the pleasant Ocean speak, 
Filled with the pride of certain triumph, 
Whether, men, her lovers, smile or weep. 
Fairest Ocean ! nobly, deeply, graceful ! 
Wandering in your wild will eternal ! 
Thou wilt never lose thy stately youth, 
when empires silent sleep. 



THE BRIDE ; 
BURIED AT SEA. 

ll ESTORE thy dead, Sea ! 

Loud shrieking in deep agony — 
Thou grasped my Love away from me ! 
And laid her in thy grave, Sea ! 



Bring back my dead, wild Sea ! 

To night, alas ! I tried to sleep — 
But my bride, I shall not see. 

Who sleeps so well below the deep ! 

Restore my dead to me ! 

And now she seems a mormaid queen 
And now she lifts a pearl for me — 

And now she calls when I do dream. 



THE seas are hushed by rocky isles, 
And wide, the night is soft and still ; 

Her home is deep a hundred miles, 
Embossed with gold and pearly shell. 

I see her not ! I touch her not ! 

she is crowned with ocean gems, 
Wide wandering free from grot to grot. 

That gleam with azure tinted flames. 

The f ronded alga's beauty streams. 
Through miles of silver tasselled halls 

Through sunny portals emerald green. 
Along the rocky pillared walls. 

To night, my love lies deep with thee ; 

To night I hear the sullen roar '. 
O that my love would come to me. 

Whose smile will be no more ! 



O CRUEL, wild old Sea, 

That breakest all my rest ! 
Restore my dead to me, 

That beats but with my breast ! 

Each breaking wave sighs loud "my love' 

Her name so holy, dear. 
To haunt me when at morn I rove. 

And in my evenings drear. 



No toucli of sun can light the wave, 

No crimson shadow phiy, 
When wild the billows rave, 

To cheer or tend my way. 

The lines of ever whitening surf, 
Move onward like a gloomy ghost, 

To tell me of my darling's worth, 
Jo haunt the ever darkening coa'st 



NO more at pleasant eventide, 
My love will walk Avith me, 

( )r hear the ebbing of the tide, 
The music of the sea. 

No more to see at anchor ride 
Th^ winged birds of the deep ; 

Or o'er the azure waters glide. 

Our boat that rocked us soft in sleep. 

Her lily hands, will clasp no more 

My hands unto her own. 
When I return along the shore, 

Lone wandering through the gloom. 

O lips ! and eyes, and flowing tears ! 

That fall when oft I grieve : 
Her heart still as yon icy mere ; 

Its absence still bereaves. 

Not in my home, nor on the sea. 

Will she ever be my bride ; 
But on the seas of worlds to be, 

Eternal shall we glide. 



f 



THE SHH* YARD, 

OR a year was merrily heard, 
The creaking of nails, and plank, 



As they wrought on the great ship's flank, 
Haising whole trees at a word. 

The bell was sounded at morn, 
And was mustered an army of men, 
Swarthy and stout, and tall, and grim. 
To build the wonderful form. 

The luistle, and hustle was heard, 

The hoisting of timber each in its place. 

To fashion the prow of the grand old face 

I To meet the billows and surge. 

i 

I The carpenter's whistle and song. 

As they gayly fell to their work. 
Was a joy in the midst of the dearth 
Of planing from night till the morn. 

For a year they made each a friend, 
And the pipe went round with a merry 

smoke. 
And the odorous fumes, would airily float. 
Ere each plank they fully could bend. 

It was labor and bustle, and fun, 
As the great Ship rose, a giant in air, 
With a visage strange, but kingly fair. 
In the rays of the silvery sun. 

And the hours at last were gay, 
And the Ship stood stately in pride. 
Gazing but mute, and ready to ride 
The winds and the billows away. 

Then rose tl;e cheers, from crowded piers. 
While the streamers were floating on high. 
And a smile was seen in the builder's eye 
As she bounded in the morn of her years. 



ONE chill December dawn, 

I walked alone by the whispering shore ; 



But heard the merry laugh no more, 
Nor the workmen's cheerful song. 

The grand old Ship has gone, 
To the bosom of the dark sad deep, 
And the silent ship-yard seems to weep, 
In the twilight of the lonesome morn. 

Desolate, cold and still. 
With not a sound of the hammers' notes. 
Nor the builder's laughter, jeers and jokes 
Tne old ship-yard sleeps under the hill. 

On high, like speechless ghosts. 
The tall and vacant timbers stood. 
And all the frozen ground was strewed. 
Dumb with many a broken post. 

Deep toned, how solemn here, 

The winds sweep cold and vaguely now. 

Where the white gull loves to come and 

go, 
In the dawning strangely drear ; 

As by a mansion's long closed doors. 
When the first, and queenly guest hath 

gone. 
And the music ceases from the lawn. 
And footsteps from the floors. 

To night, the dear old Ship will rest. 
Along the moonlit silver miles. 
Hard by the tropic Indian isles. 
O'er Ocean's deep and finest crest. 

Thus one by one, they leave us here, 
Those friends we ever love so well ; 
In other places they must dwell, 
By other waters wild or clear. 



HELL GATE. 

T was a night of ruthless woe, 
And wild the bitter blast 
Did heave the white foam fron the 
Cold over " Hell Gate " fast. 



leop 



Calm were the fleeting hours that day, 
Across Long Island Sound, 

Nor hinted of the storm that night. 
That wrathful shook the ground. 

But ere the morning light did break, 
Hell Gate drew a dreary moan — 

The Bristol steamer drifted wide, 
With all our friends went down. 

Then came a pause. The wildly last, 
And nervous, quickened step 

Was heard below in palace halls, 
The crowds upon the deck. 

And love was there, in its last smile, 
And calling through the doors ; 

Sweet girlhood's beauty drenched in tears, 
White hands, that clasp no more. 

mother ! where thy darling child ? 

And father's bended form ! 
O maiden ! where thy bosom friend '. 

When rose that dreary dawn. 

In vain the glittering gold was clutched, 

To buy a little hope. 
In vain the captain called aloud, 

While Woe his numbers wrote. 

Death did grasp the icy wheel — 
The captain could no more ! 

And downward to a watery grave, 
The weeping hundreds bore. 



In the liushed parlor bright the lights 
Were burning sweet at home, 

Expectant of the smiling face, 
That should return next morn. 

( > that the light would never break. 
And leaA^e our house forlorn ! 

Vet God with death did walk that night, 
On wild Long Island sound. 



BUT I have dreamed. The shadow passed, 
A calm is on the main, 



And up the roaring New York street, 
I prayerful Avalk again. 

And feeling through my pulsing heart. 
How God the storm can slake ! 

How well He yearly watches us, 
As we pass through Hell Gate. 

And though life's billows rise and fall. 
Grim shadows o'er us loom, 

He looketh o'er the raving floods. 
Who keeps us safe in gloom. 



•^- 



THE CHILDEN OF THE MANSION. 



NETTIE, 



fIS just four years Aunty, since our 
dear mother died ! 
Don't you remember? 'twas at the ebbing 

of the tide. 
The new moon glimmered, aunty, by yon- 
der casement there, 
And the evening star looked down, so 
still, through all the darkened air. 

I remember the black liearse, that wen- 
ded from yon hill ; 

And our dear mother laid so white, and 
cold, and still. 

And when I spoke to her, slie did not lift 
her hand ; 



Nor when I asked, she would not hear my 

bleating lamb. 
Mother always spoke to me, and stroked 

my troubled brow ; 
But I never hear her walking, by my bed 

side now. 

Dont you remember, when they carried 

her through yonder door ? 
And father said, that we should never 

see her more. 
And when brother Willie wept, and wo 

did not sleep at night ; 
And all the house watched for the comiiiu 

of the light ; 



9 



And at the gate way, when all the day 

was o'er, 
The house dog came to meet us, across 

the paven floor. 

Don't you remember, aunty ? when the 

room was all, so still, 
Tiie day before she died '( — we heard 

the cricket chirping in the sill ; 
And you said, it was the ticking of the 

clock, you know ; 
But father wept so bitter, while the winds 

did loudly blow. 

I can well remember ! that dark and 

chilly day ! 
When our only dear, sweet mother, said 

" good by " ! 
Did you not hear, aunty ? the roaring of 

the distant sea, 
And watch the wild clouds, roll, dreary, 

o'er the barren lea ! 
Just four years to night, and now I'm on 

your knee ; 
Bnt our dearest mother, we shall never, 

never see. 

And now I am very lonely, looking in 
your face — 

The eve was just like this, across the yon- 
der waste. 

0, I do not like to hear the leafless jes- 
samine. 

Scrape, and tap, the chilly window pane ! 

'Twas here in the twilight, not very long 
ago, 

1 sat here with mother, and heard the 

same winds blow. 
Those tall and ancient brown clad trees 
are waving now ; 



And even there, my summer doves do not 
come and go. 

(» there is Willie, and Jane, and Mary 

Annie, just come from town ! 
But mother is never here to greet us 

when we come home. 
Can 1 go aunty ? The day seems so long 

and sad ? 
I want to pluck the fall flowers bright, to 

make me feel so glad. 
And then my little garden, my flowers 

lay all untrimmed. 
And ugly weeds around the walk, and 

roses wind ; 
Old black Rover looks so pleased and 

happy now. 
say dear aunty — how I love and 

mourn to go ! 

Is it true ? — my little cheek is very 

pale they say ; 
And I am declining now, and cannot bear 

the day. 
Dear mother has gone before me far away 
To other homes of love and light, so all 

the people say. 

And if I should die, dear aunty, will you 

keep, 
My lone garden trimmed, when I have 

gone to sleep ? 
But the day is saddening, aunty, I long to 

go and stay, 
In golden fields of light, with mother, 

through all the live long day. 

1 heard the church choir sing, to soothe 

our aching soul ; 
There is a home of hope and light, where 



10 



God his lambs enfold — 
And that music now, doth fill the pleasant 

twilight airs ; 
And I can sometimes hear an angel on 

the stairs. 
I wonder if my dear mother can ever 

come like this ! 
From all the happy lands, of light and 

bliss 1 
I wish I could be an angel and fly so far 

away. 
To meet my dearest mother, in all the 

golden day. 

And will Willie, and Mary Annie, come 

with me. 
If through the next bright spring, I dwell 

no more with thee ? 
O dearest aunty ! will you spread ray 

roses o'er my grave — 
It will be, by my mother's near by the 

yonder wave — 
G press my hand, dear sister Annie, ere 

I go! 
And will you walk upon my grave, when 

I am lying low ? 
And will Jane, and brother Willie, come 

when I am gone ; 
For I shall be so lonely, in the chill and 

crimson morn. 

WILLIE. 

AGAIN the hearse has wended, from the 

silent hill ; 
And aunty sits weeping by the window 

sill. 
Little Jane and Willie, and Mary Annie 

gone 



To spread the flowers o'er the little grave 

so lone — 
For the birds had come again, and it was 

spring time now ; 
And the grass on Nettie's grave, had just 

begun to grow. 

I am very weary aunty ! I have been so 

long away 
To Nettie's grave, and where our dear 

dear mother lay. 

why did they name me Willie, I wish I 

was a dove, 

1 would fly away to Nettie, far in yonder 

land of love. 
There never strays a shadow there, nor 

any storm, 
As on yonder ocean, when the wild winds, 

wail upon the lawn. 

I had a dream last night, that we were 

all at home — 
No seas, no storm, no death ; we did no 

longer roam. 
We were dwelling in a land of flowers 

forever more ; 
Mother, I, and Nettie, passed ever in and 

out the door. 
It was a dear and happy place, a most 

splendid room. 
And father, and you, aunty, had not yet 

come. 

AUNT ESTHER. 

ONE year has passed away, and aunt 

Esther sits and waits ; 
But hears no more the little footsteps, 

patter through the gates, 
'Tis twilight — and by the crimson cur- 



11 



taiiied casement there, 

The August sunset touches now and then 
her silver hair ; 

And the beams lay on the floor, and 
strike aganst the wall, 

Cold stealing, through the door way, in- 
to yonder gloomy hall. 

The front doors are locked, and scarcely 

ever now, 
Through that door the village people, 

come and go. 
The walk where Nettie, and Mary Annie 

used to play, 
Lacks the care of other years, and the 

long grass fills the way. 
No one scarcely passes there, from early 

June, to June, 
And lonely around aunt Esther's home, 

looks down the silent moon. 

One place now, she only has, one window 

toward the bay ; 
And the wind stirs the bible leaves, that 

on the casement lay. 
One quaint and richly covered chair, .by 

the window keeps its place ; 
And there she looks all day, with a weary 

weary face. 
With thoughtful eyes where rolls now 

and then a tear. 
She gazes toward the sea, for friends 

who never can come here. 

In foreign port, or on some lone and an- 
gry shore, 

Nettie's father lies, and here will smile 
no more. 

The stars look coldly down, upon that 



distant grave ; 
And here so still by yonder spreading 

pine doth lay, 
Little Willie, and Mary Annie, and blue 

eyed little Jane, 
All watched by that same star, that looks 

far o'er the main. 

Four little graves, and one a little longer 
there, 

Where the wind sighs through the sway- 
ing branches bare. 

There the birds flit by, and the moonlight 
gently lies, 

And the voice from the distant sea lin- 
gers here and dies. 

There the seasons sing, their deep and 
constant song, 

And coldly mftrmur round the silent 
house and lawn. 

still ! how still are all the sad and emp- 
ty rooms ! 

Little Willie now no longer, through each 
doorway roams ! 

And Mary Annie and her dolls, long since 
are very still ; 

And the cricket again is chirping, below 
the ancient sill. 

There are dark curtains hanging there, 
near by the nursery door, 

And not a toy is on the vacant, lonely 
floor. 

Aunt Esther, scarcely ever goes through 

the parlor now. 
And the casement curtains, are very close 

and low. 
But the portraits are ever hanging on the 

solemn wall ; — 



12 



And at noon 'tis ever dusky, along the 

voiceless hall ; — 
And there is mother's in her satin wed- 

ing dress, 
And little darling Nettie's, still a perfect, 

rosy face. 

The green lane turns inward toward the 

lawn, 
And across it the robins fly in dreary 

hours of morn. 
The gates are shut. No flowers now a- 

round the lonely door ! 
And at the hour of evening, the house 

dog comes no more. 
The moon-beams in the same old places 

rest ; 
But weary, dear Aunt Esther's hands, are 

folded on her brea^. 

LIFE'S, DUTY. 

LL For one goal are striving, 
To reap Life's golden field, 
To find the realm of the happy ; 
it is no wild dream ! 

Be thou cheerful, and not failing, 

From this work of thine ! 
Thy heart is deep, with glory beating : 

Learn Patience is sublime. 

Hopes have thou that must be broken; 

This is God's most certain law ; 
It worketh like the token, 

Prophets from dark mountains saw. 

O the shades of ceaseless sadness, 
Our grieving brings to friends ! 

Our looks to them should be the gladness, 
God, through our faces sends. 



Then, when these days are ended, 
More shall we leave than tears ; 

Like Angels o'er our friends attended, 
Our smiles through silent years. 

THE DAUGHTER. 

JjL H ! Thou art quick, and wild ! 
'^^' Gold haired Fairy, wondrous Child ! 
How can 1 love thy lips so cold ? 
Thy mother's were more bland and 
mild ! 

But darker years are in their grave, 
They have been so chilled, yet full for me ! 
In happier light, thy golden tress doth 

wave. 
And I am lingering more than charmed 

with thee. 

I saw thy angel raptures, when so young, 
And watched thy smiles when on thy fa- 
ther's knee. 
Yet, for thy mother's cherished memory, 
I gaze again, and still I think of thee. 

Thy grace is not thy mothers, my sweet 

child, 
Alas ! that loomed for me, a mount of 

snow, 
So cold, and melted in a sea so wild — 
O thus the kindest seasons waning go ! 

The silver locks are waving to my brow. 
But all the fields of light, are wide for 

thee. 
When thy dear heart its fitful way will 

know. 
Sweet minded ! — be thy worldly life as 

pure ! 



13 



Think of the hidden heights thy thought 

must climb : 
Howe'er Ambition's sparkling goal may 

lure, 
meet us in the golden fields of Time ! 



4 



OUR KITTEN. 
WILLOW basket on the floor, 



Did hold a little gentle form : 
She comes and puts her head near mine, 
Familiar cuddles down so warm. 

She doth not speak at eventide, 
With crossness o'er and o'er ; 

But sweetly purrs and winks by me. 
Looks silent from the floor. 

And when at night, we sit and read. 
And cold the sleet beats on the pane. 

She comes and sits so near by me, 
Turns up her eyes to mine. 

say not, they are never friends ! 

These little creatures everywhere ; 
They come and soothe me when I'm lone, 

Dream by my evening chair. 

God hath many a deeper sign 
Of hope, and heavenward wish. 

But none in all a wondrous world. 
Of calm more sweet than this. 

THE OLD FARM. 

fHE Old house in the orchard, 
Stands closed and blinded still. 
And the willows wave their tresses, 
That shade the olden mill. 



There' was calm rapture! the embraces. 

Of dear ones dead and gone. 
But where the willow interlaces, 

Dew moists a grave at morn. 

The tall trees wilt and weep forever. 
In the sunlight of the spring, 

And o'er the fields at evening, never 
The gentle hands my letters bring. 

Half broken, stretch the bars in silence, 

No footstep treads the stile. 
Wild weeds about the path are woven ; 

Sad fields look down a mile. 

Not often now, up toward the village, 
You hear the low voiced mill. 

The boys have long ago deserted, 
The old house on the hill. 



THE MESSENGER. 

/(\\VER the way,in my neighbor's house 
%!) all night. 

There burned at the frosty window, 
A bright portentous light. 

I could hear doors closing and shutting 

below, 
And the moving across the room like 

shadows, — 
The pacing to and fro. 

By night, a messenger came to that house 

o'er the way, 
With his burial shroud ere the dawning, 

And took their daughter away. 

I looked through tears, out toward the 

house at morn. 
Not a sign of her gentle departure. 
Moved over that house so lone. 



14 



No halo of glory was shed o'er the deso- 
late roof, 
No sign of her beautiful spirit, 

Bowing o'er the place of her youth. 

Gone ! — and who shall see in smiles, 

that dear pale face again ! 
I watched for the time of her going ; 
No hint came to me of the time. 

But she is dead ! this is all we mortals 

can know. 
Let us hope in the days of our anguish ! 
We know not when the spirit shall go. 







GOOD WORDS. 

i\ THE deepest, sweetest token ! 
) The glances from a friendly eye. 
Blest words, where they soe'er are spoken, 
Can never wholly die ! 

Like bright stars at midnight rising, 
To guide the wanderer on the deep, 

They cheer us when we are lying. 
Despairing in our own dark grief. 

They fall like the sweet responses, 
From the organ's deep repose. 

When fade the chancel tapers. 
And the procession outward goes. 

When that music's sweetest echo, 

Fills my barrenness of soul, 
I still can hear its voice forever. 

Around this great cathedral roll. 

Kind, kind words are benedictions, 
Soft uttered after all our toil, 

Are immortal incantations. 
Heard while we work in harsh turmoil. 



By the bedside of the weary, 

While all the streams of life run low, 
They flit across the memory, 

When the shadows colder grow. 

Those, my friends who have departed, 
When o'er my home the starlight 
falls — 

I feel the kind, the tender hearted. 

Sit with me round my household walls. 

Their dear words I oft remember, 
Worth far more than flesh or form. 

The encouraging, the most tender, 
Abiding with me till the dawn. 

Affection's words can have no fading, 
Bat sleep like these deep in the breast ; 

" Come unto me when heavy laden. 
And I will givs you rest. " 

LITTLE SARAH. 

/T^.UR Grandma stood beside her reel, 

v// To spin both night and day. 

And heard for years the humming wheel. 

The daisies by the door way grew, 

Where summer sunlight slept. 

Where elms their luscious shadows drew. 

The grace that lit the care worn brow. 

And touched the placid lip. 

These days scarce ever show us now. 

The andirons by the smouldering fire, 

Foretold the household cheer, 

And gleamed all bright and polished there 

The sun threw in its gentlest ray, 
Seemed to kiss that patient face. 
And glowed a holy golden day. 



15 



But then a sweeter ray did fall 
Upon a dear one on the floor, 
The darling flower and light of all. 

Little Sarah sat and watched 
The whirling spinning wheel, 
That wondrous charmed the baby thought. 

A shady bonnet wide did rest. 
O'er those little shoulders dear, 
A whitest apron round the waist. 

No tear was there, but constant smiles 

Did light the happy face, 

That paled below the angel eyes. 

And grandma stood, and watched, and 

hoped. 
For that blest, and holy child. 
While through her widowed world she 

groped. 

The tears that lit the aged lash, 
Grew deep amid the years. 
When on her heart the thought would 
flash ; 

That this dear child, must meet the woe 
That falls to every human soul 
Who beats the trails that upward go. 

And then the tears rolled down the cheek, 
Aud little Sarah wondered why 
Grandma should look on her and weep. 

VALLEY FLOWERS 

LIFE'S Vale can always be in light, 
I A dear place of ceaseless youth ! 
And I now following down the vale, 
Flit o'er its flowery hill and dale, 
As eagles round the summits sail. 



I know the things of life are real , 
Bnt then I chase mine own ideal. 
Like birds, the poet takes his flight. 
However falls the shades of night, 
Then hovers round the things of light. 

So in my youth, or in my age, 
I drink from streams where lilies blow. 
I cull the flowers that lying low 
Around life's sweetest places grow, 
That are for man who toils below. 

Thought to cheer, is all so sweet, 
I name thee now " sweet flower ; " 
Ye grow adown life's valley dells, 
Up and down the fragrant fells. 
When you cluster sunny bells. 

My lays I write to you my friend. 
Are the flowers I gather round my door- 
Some are bright with azure eyes. 
Looking upward toward the skies. 
When thought with higher pinion flies. 

Some are chill, and wild and pale — 
Daisies growing round the grave so still 
Thoughts and feelings that unfold. 
From chilly winters snow and cold, 
Crocus living when the north winds roll 

Life's thoughts I cull where'er I go. 
When saddened cities roar below — 
Sweetest valley flowers are these, 
I gather in the morning breeze, 
That in my singing interweaves. 



DAISY BELL. 

GOME and hear me brothers, gather 
\ round my knee ; 



10 



I tell of farmer Joseph, greater none there 
are than he. 

Look ! the fire is burning brightly, ruddy 
in its tlame. 

Up the ancient chimney roaring, whisper- 
ing like a dream. 

A dream of the departed cycles of the 

years ; 
Dreams of wonder, dreams of furious 

fears. 

How cold without is blowing, brothers, 

now the winter wild ! 
Cracks the fire so loudly, shudders wild 

the blind. 

Hark ! the surf is beating, gloomy on the 

distant shore ! 
Night winds moaning loudly, round the 

gable door ! 

O hear the bitter shrieking voices of the 

blast, 
While the fleecy snow is falling thickly, 

thickly fast. 

How on the windows, the firelight's dance 

with wizard feet. 
And like a ghost is tapping, the sharp 

and icy sleet. 

Hark ! the winter winds are wailing, woe- 
fully on high. 

Shrieking loud in agony, as though the 
world would die. 

But hear the dreadful echoes, deep'ning 

down the shore ! 
The night of this old year departing, and 

to return no more. 



SIX of us are we, sitting, musing round 

the fire. 
Cold, cold, ! let us huddle silent, nigher, 

nigher ! 

Bring the nuts and apples, from the kitch- 
en cupboard full ; 

And bring pussy near us, on her cush- 
ioned stool. 

Now the story dearest brothers, I can tell 

you of the past. 
While the fowl are sleeping, huddled cold 

upon the roost. 

You know the house of strange and an- 
cient gables high. 

That sat last summer softly,mid the fields 
of rye. 

You know the old well sweep, peeping 

weirdly in the breeze, 
Where at heated noontide, old tired Dobin 

drank beneath the trees. 

Where the old carts are standing, muffled 
now with snow. 

Where in summer evenings often we ram- 
bling loved to go. 

'Twas here that farmer Joseph, honest 

paying all his bills. 
Lived happy with the reapers, reaping 

all his fields. 
Not like the modern cities' many minded 

men. 
But earnest, sturdy, honest, content with 

humble gain. 
He rose at early morning, knowing when 

the cockerel led 
His little nation dappled, following them 

to bed. 



Of farmer Joseph's children living, none 

can ever tell, 
But one sweet darling Daisy, we — we 

called him Daisy Bell. 

The reapers reaping often, heard his 

laughing silver voice, 
Of all the farms, the beauty, the reaper's 

only choice ; 

With his flaxen hair all golden, more 
wavy than the grain. 

And the happy pictures clustering, when- 
e'er was heard his name. 

Dear Daisy Bell ! Daisy Bell ! 

reaping with the reapers then ! 
Little pearl among the boulders, little 

mid the sturdy men. 

Quick the reapers reaping, in the golden 

grain. 
Left the many bundles scattered by the 

wain. 

For Daisy darling coming tripping o'er 

the fields, 
Would often love to bind the bundles for 

the threshing flails ; 

Then in the scorching noon tides, he 
brought the reapers food. 

Who smiled to see the darling, howso- 
ever low their mood. 

Then the punch he often stirring with 

grandma's silver spoon. 
Was sweet unto the reapers reaping near 

the summer noon. 

The corn was gathered in at autumn, and 

stored in manj^ barns. 
And the pumpkins golden growing rich 
about the farms. 



And little Daisy Bell lugging often crook- 
necks weirdly hooked — 

We often lauglied to see him tugging , 
as large as him they looked. 

When the barns were bursting wealthy 

with the harvest's gold. 
Then came the farmer's daughters from 

the quaint household. 

With eyes all filled with smiling, dreams 

of loves to be. 
When at the golden husking, they clapped 

their hands in glee. 

The wondrous moonlight sleeping, glanc- 
ing on the snowy hill. 

Shone beautiful in silver, gliding o'er the 
icy rill. 

But glowed the farmer maiden's beauty 

in the pleasant eve. 
When they had gathered there together 

'mid the bounden sheaves. 

But little Daisy growing older, longed 

for husking time, 
And wound tliis pleasant tableau through 

his growing mind. 

One night beneath the lamplight, Daisy 

found a crimson ear ; 
So by rule, the maidens blushing, drew 

around him near. 

But Daisy blushing deeper, hid his head 

beneath his sleeve, 
Hardly dreaming, what mystic weaving 
they might weave. 

But like a rose bud bending unto the 

native ground. 
Two girlish lips dear Daisy's cheeks 

had found. 



18 



Then the welkin echoed : sde beauty 
round the lanterns play — 

Three cheers for little Daisy, and Mabel, 
Mabel May ! 



ONE by one the fairy footsteps, min- 
gling in the light, 

Faded, and in the village, silent grew the 
night. 

But ere another season's husking, many 
a farmer maid 

Had taken vows at alters, saying : "Love 
shall never fade. " 

One bright and sunny autumn, as the rea- 
pers came again, 

When the long twilight shadowed all the 
waving grain. 

Came Mabel weeping, moving lost among 
the fields. 

With golden tresses blowing, 'mid the 
barley sheaves. 

Her apron full of sweetest meadow vines 
and flowers, 

Came she by the babbling brook-side, 
made wide by autumn showers. 

Up and down she wandered, trembling 
like a dove 

That was on the thither wooded upland, 
moaning for its love. 

The twilight shades were gathering dark 
and the sedgy bank. 

And she seemed grieved, long wandering 
for the bridge's plank. 

But Daisy Bell was binding barley on 
the other side, 

And saw her graceful through the pur- 
ple evening glide. 



Then, he went to meet her by the marshy 

brooklet dark — 
'Say now, I will pay you Mabel, though 

yet 'tis growing dark ! 

Four years ago you kissed me, husking 
in the barn — 

Now I can pay you back Mai el, wander- 
ing round the farm. 

I have listened hopeful, hearing your 
sweet voice. 

Warbling through the twilights, making- 
it my choice. 

Nay, you shall not cross the brooklet dar- 
ling, for the kiss 

C>n my cheek still lingers, I waiting long 
for this ; 

To catch you with the night winds, sigh- 
ing all alone. 

Giving me a chance to aid you, hearing 
your sweet moan. 

Long enough Mabel, Mabel ! have you 

sang around the fields ; 
Four years we have seen you troubled, as 

Time in wonder wheels. 

Singing in the gentle evening, long I've 

heard your lay, 
Sweet'ning all my twilight, after toiling 

all the day. 

I know your dreams are nightly, and you 

are lonely now. 
As this brooklet sigheth ever, shaded in 

its ceaseless flow. 

O Mabel, Mabel, my heart is ever, ever 

thine ! — 
And I shall reap with you, in the happy 

fields of time. 



19 



Thy sister, O thy sister! dying, sleeping 

with the flowers. 
Hath gone where love is shining ever in 

celestial bowers, 

Where the pleasant mornings blooming, 
never seem like thine — 

So full of sadness grieving — Then Ma- 
bel, let thy heart be mine ! " 

Then lovely in the twilight stood she 

pale and still, 
Tie flowers from out her apron dropping, 

saying sweet " I will." 

Then Daisy stepping forward, half way 

met her on the plank. 
Amid the towering dusky rushes hiding 

all the bank ; 

And around them warbling happy, low 

the robins sung, 
And by the firefly dances, all the blue 

bells rung ; 

And the stars looked down in silence, 

whispering love. 
With a hundred magic voices, dreamlike 

from above. 



YOU ask me, what those golden lights 
in the ancient gabled house. 

Across the snow-strom gleaming, through 
the ricket posts. 

There the grain fields now are lying, cov- 
ered with the snow. 

And about the pleasant garden, the night 
winds chilly blow. 



there is cheer and comfort beaming 

round the hearth ! 
And you hear sweet music rising through 

the winter's dearth. 

Many a season's husking golden, filling 

all the barns, 
Have passed away in silence, with all 

their hallowed charms. 

No rosier girl than Mabel, has found 
love's silver chord, 

To bind around the household, in sweet- 
est, tender word. 

Now Daisy Bell is sitting with Mabel by 
the fire, 

A wealthy happy farmer, building cas- 
tles in the air. 

He sows the grain for Mabel, year after 

each long year. 
And keeps the husking holy, with music 

chanted clear. 

You should see the farmer's daughters 
gather then. 

With home spun gown and mantle, com- 
ing bj- the wain. 

Looking out to Mabel wistful, and all 

their secret keep. 
With now and then a little curve moving 

round the lip. 

Some who were at the husking, have 
travelled far away ; 

Some have met their marriage morn be- 
yond their low, green grave. 

Some are ever lonely, watching round 

the farms. 
And the same they go each season, to 

husk in all the barns. 



20 



In the old gable house of Daisy's o'er 

the floors, 
Glide the village dancers, and joy is round 

the doors. 

And the reapers reaping often, hear the 

merry laugh 
Of Mabel at the doorway, or when the 

house they pass. 

The winter fire light glimmers o'er the 

mantle piece, 
And shows her picture hanging painted 

when Mabel was a lass. 

With her golden hair down streaming, 

and the light 
Of angel eyes, now grown more beautiful 

and bright. 

The old tall clock standing ticking in the 

corner there. 
Is gilded by the flicker looming in the 

mystic air ; 

Near the old arm chair it gazes ever 

quaintly down 
O'er Daisy Bell and Mabel, at eve and 

silver morn. 

. And here is a second little DaisA% and a 

Mabel dear. 
And another little darling, the fire side's 

hope and cheer. 



NOW, round the granary bursting into 

twilight gold. 
The longer shadows of the evening, well 

begin to fold. 



Round Mabel's brow the silver ringlet 

graceful sleeps. 
And Love's field is reaped again, and the 

harvest is found sweet. 

And the reapers, reaping ever, reap the 

constant love. 
To bind it radiant, in the golden sheaves 

above. 



DISAPPOINTED. 

A WARNING. 

T|J¥r AKE me a wreath of orange flowers 
A^Xi^r from the/rightest on the tree, 
For ere another morn, these bowers will 

ring with merriest glee ! 
And what will all my garden, and all my 

walks and flower beds say ? 
For ere the world rolls eastward, 'twill be 

my bridal day. 

there will be no shadow, or cloud across 

the breaking morn ! 
And our days will be so brilliant, in our 

long, sweet life of song. 
My Love will come to-morrow, though 

he has strayed awhile away ; 
For ere the world rolls eastward, 'twill 

be my bridal day. 

The thrush will wake me early sister, as 

•ever in the garden bowers, 
And I shall see the morning, with many a 

smile, to meet my golden hours. 
The dawn with bugle voices, will sing its 

sweet and lovely lay ; 
For ere the world rolls eastward, 'twill 

be my bridal day. 



21 



I seem to hear the bugles bloAving, sis- 
ter, from all the sunny dells, 

And the very sky seems deeper to echo 
marriage bells ; 

I hear the gentle rustle of silken gar- 
ments, trailing gold and grey ; 

For ere the world rolls eastward, 'twill 
be my bridal day. 



BUT the morning came in beauty. 
And the wedding feast was spread. 

And tlie anxious hearts were waiting — 
But the maiden's morn was dead. 



IN the lone and mournful marches. 

Mysterious by the light. 
What through the gloom is gleaming, 

That breaks along the night ? 

Now, all men are only dreaming. 

Hushed, in the quiet room, 
Lost^n silence and in slumber. 

Amid the dark'ning gloom. 

How glorious is the silence ! 

How fair and sweet the rest ! 
How various is the beauty, 

Along the starry west. 

But from night, comes up the moaning. 

Out from the dismal street. 
From Intemperance, and the riot. 

As watchmen make their beat. 

There beyond a dusky window, 
C)ne heart yet wastes with woe, 



Ah ! dragged by the wine cup downward, 
Still praying faint and low, 

Looking heavenward from these shadows 

That now enthrall below. 
From the bitter, bitter, revel. 

Where chains but tighter grow ; 

Chains of appetite, and wine cups, 
That stronger and heavy bind, 

Leaving inarks of darkest ievil, 
Across the lovely mind. 

Yet, from time to time he wrestles, 

To cast it to the ground — 
In tears, and bitterest anguish, 

Nought but death is found. 

Life to him is shut forever. 

The rich and noble store ; 
Here, never will be opened. 

The wide and golden door. 

Hopes he had, and life was happy ; 

Buds nipped, but in their prime — 
the hopes that all are blasted ! 

O bitter, bitter wine ! 

Ah ! far down the street is coming. 
Through night and silent gloom, 

The dark coated, lonely watchmen. 
Like ghosts beneath the moon. 

Now you find him, but be gentle. 

This may but be his last — 
Smoothe his locks so fair and curly — 

Who curled them in days past? 

Send the message to his darling. 

That he doth Hnger still ; 
But, break it lightly to her ! 

Thy errand go fulfil. 



22 



STILL his old home stands in beauty, 

And shaded by the trees, 
And the little stream is flowing, 

In liquid lullabies. 

There is fragrance in the orchard. 

And sunlight on the hill. 
And the long, long grass is waving, 

Down by the olden mill. 

That dear sister sits an angel, 

Amid the loves at home — 
But the father's dreams are broken, 

For now his boy is gone. 

Son who only but to think of. 

Was but a growing joy. 
And many a burden lightened — 

The golden headed boy ! 

Now, the dawn is sadly rising. 

Around the native doors, 
And an aged form is pacing, 

Across the study floors. 

Without, the flowers are opening 
Sweet to the crimson dawn. 

But now — all is turned to darkness. 
And silent lays the lawn. 

the sadness of the dawning ! 

The little garden way — 
the gloomy, gloomy, meadow 

Down where he used to play ! 

O the bitter, lonely parting, 
In the early morning light ! 

the maiden broken hearted ! 
The marriage morn a dismal night. 

Where is the wreath of orange flowers. 
That graced the blushing brow ? 



They changed to bitterness Marah of - 
She never wears them now. 

DAYS of darkness ! nights of revel ! 

Will these evils ever cease ? 
Art thou beauty, or a devil ? 

Man ! but made for golden peace. 
Intemperance, darkest failing ! 

Of our great, and lovely land. 
Is our nation coldly dreaming ? 

Yet a fabric on the sand 1 
Then break — break ! this iron fetter ! 

Now — that hangs around us all ! 
Still our nation looms but darkly. 

Covered with its funeral pall. 



OUR NEIGHBOR'S LITTLE 
BOY. 

Jft, CALL across the midnight came. 
"^^ darling boy ! grace of angel 

prime ! 
Did we think ? Ah who did dream, 
That brow could waste to earthly dftmps 
of Time ! 

Could Death have only paused awhile, 
About the icy street, and lovely home — 
Could we have heard God say, "Give up 

thy cliild, " 
A little solace then we might have known. 

Only four days ago, his eyes 
Turned up to ours their deep and dear- 
est light ; 
But the tender soul, winged to blest isles, 
We saw not in the rapture of its flight. 



23 



Ah, we shall hear that voice no more ! 
But lingers in our hearts a long regret, 
We did not heed the work he labored o'er, 
For while I think of him, mine eyes are 
wet. 

Not till our dearest say "good by, " 
And cannot breathe their gentle voice in 

love or pain. 
Do we most feel their deepest tie, 
(^r value well what they can never give 

again. 

No song, no sigh, no evening prayer, 
Can all assuage our dark, and solemn 

grief ; 
It fills the room, floats by the stair. 
Yet God while sending this, smiles from 

His cloud relief. 



B 



THE WELCOME VISIT. 
ELIGHTFUL ! — Down the gutter, 



Loud the waters pour. 
All in worry and flutter. 
Dancing round the door. 
The rain is softly kissing, 
The summer flowers to rest. 
And the little drops are sleeping, 
Upon the lily's breast. 
And now transparent damps arise ; 
I see no more the distant hill, 
And now loud laughs the little rill, 
And down the gully flies. 
The drops, with deep and silver eyes, 
Dance round my garden vase. 
And dally in their deeper dyes 
Around the shady place. 



The drooping boughs of sycamore. 

Feel their gentle fingers press 

The quivering leaflets evermore, 

And all their green embrace. 

Still stand the graceful hollyhocks, 

With open purple bells. 

Receive the merry water drops. 

Within their golden wells. 

In yonder dingle hollow down, 

I hear the clapping of the hands, 

Among the brakes beyond the town, 

Amid refreshed and leafy lands ; 

And all the happy flower bells, 

Ring loud in hopeful joy, 

Where lay the deep and grassy fells, 

Where summer droughts annoy. 

dancing, shining summer rain. 

How well you soothe my heart ! — 

After all the weary pain. 

Soul riseth like the lark. 

The season burned so long and harsh. 

Love's shower soothes as Lethe's heart, 

And round our walk we cheerful laugh. 

Sweeping o'er the woodlands, 
Where winds the pleasant lane. 
Thus sweetly and forever, 
Gleams the dancing rain. 



TO THE OLD FIELDS. 

THOU art not here— but flown away ! 
But still I think, and dream of thee. 

blue eyed sweet eyed, Alice Grey ! 

1 hear thee gently calling me. 
Here is the spot ! Look up the lane. 
On these same fields we once did look. 



24 



And all these flowers repeat her name, 
And glow, as when we crossed this 
brook. 

There stands the mill, there whirls the 

wheel, 
Their sits the miller by the door, 
And sings the brook across the field, 
And sounds the same old threshing floor. 
On the windy hill the old church stands, 
Where now the night winds moan aloft. 
'Twas there she gave her lily hands 
To mine, and whispered low and soft. 

There stand the same old pew and aisle, 
Where breathed the organ low, and sweet, 
Where stood she foremost i)i the file, 
And graceful tript her fairy feet. 
I watched her in the church beloM- ; 
Her soul life graced her lips of love ; 
She seemed for me a messenger, 
From w^here the happy spirits rove. 

I watched her from the choir above. 
And always saw her dark eye glance 
With mellow light of perfect love. 
And close in prayer in angel trance. 
There the curtains rise and fall. 
Waved by the Sabbath morning airs : 
I hear the pastor's humble call. 
And pleasant footfalls on the stairs. 

Ah my Alice, Alice Grey ! 
She is not, is not there ! — 
But now, at church, my head I lay 
Upon my sleeve, and cannot bear 
To hear the pastor call his flock 
Of golden headed girls, and say ; 
"To lose the lambs, is man's sure lot ; 
She has strayed a little while away. " 



That bell wafts slow from off the hill, 

When Sabbath twilights wane. 

One long and ceaseless knell, 

Adown the old and silent lane. 

From spring, till when the flowers fade. 

She never passes by my way ; 

But sighs the wind that round her played, 

And now my mornings break in grey. 



TO MY FATHER. 

DIED 1874. 

T^S IT a shade of sadness comes o'er me, 
"^ As I sit alone by the fire ? 
Is it the whisper from the summers de- 
parted. 
Flitting so vague on the stair ? 

Is it the ghmmer of a star I see, 
Far away in the infinite ? 
Is it my soul that murmurs to me. 
In some soft rapture of night 'i 

No none of these : 'Tis the sweet light 
Of a heart that has fled and gone, 
Like a spirit that wandereth back to me, 
A smile again in the dear old home. 

Ah ! as I sit in the silent shadows ; near 
I can feel like the beating of wings. 
The impalpable motion round me, 
The throb of a thousand strings ; 

And they bid me in the silence here. 
Be calm, and patient, and still ; 
To labor and hope, though fear 
Should rise like a storm o'er the will. 



^mOME errors and misimiits have crept into this 
IB book; but those who may read it, I trust, 
^P will kindly overlook them. For instance: an 
extra s added, or a letter left out, wrongly mak- 
ing plurals where there should be singulars, which 
were not in the manuscript. 

The Author. 



•^^^ 



UBRARV OF 




